Whirly Jig History Page

History of Whirly Jig
This guy named Ken (whom Steve happened to know previously, but his looks had changed significantly and it took Steve a month or so to realize he'd actually met Ken before) approached Annie and Steve about putting together a band; he didn't know how to describe what he wanted, but when he was done making a rather gallant effort to do so, it was pretty clear that he was looking for a folk band that could hammer out good instrumentation, solid and powerful harmony, and give off lots of energy the way a rock band might -- but without being disrespectful to the folk genre.
This is what has been dubbed by some Renaissance Festival performers as a "power band". It was the sort of band that Greencastle (Annie and Steve's previous Ren Faire band) had been, or at least was close to being, and sort of what County Cork might have done under other circumstances. It was in any regard precisely what Steve had been aiming for since he started doing music professionally.
Annie was excited at the prospect of getting to play Celtic music again. She had left County Cork a year previously, and was itching to play again.
Steve, on the other hand, had left County Cork with a desire to stay away from music for a year and away from bands for two years. So at this point in time, Steve really didn't want to join another band.
However, opportunity knocks but once. And so, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Steve came out of musical retirement a year earlier than he had planned. He couldn't let this guy go; there was too much risk he'd never see the chance again. Power bands are, unfortunately, somewhat rare in Renaissance Festival circles. Those that earn the title tend to go off and make real money elsewhere, usually, because they can.
The handful that remain on the Renaissance Festival circuit do so because they love the Faire (and, often, the lifestyle it brings). But getting three, four or five people with the kind of Ego it requires just to do this sort of thing -- and then further get them to all agree to do it at a Renaissance Festival -- is itself an even more rare event. There wasn't room in Steve's schedule, and he knew it was going to rack him up for awhile, but it felt like it was the right time.
So he agreed to join Ken's band.

Ken Rowe, circa 2003.
Photo by Minka Ricker

Annie Mariner, circa 2003.
Photo by Minka Ricker

The Band Grows -- And Shrinks
Our primary venue, at first, was to be the Colorado Renaissance Festival since we'd all worked there before, and because it's a reasonably good place for a folk band to sell CDs. We dabbled with ideas of what other kinds of places we'd do gigs, of course, as any fledgling band will do, but we knew our first target was to be ready to audition for CRF. And there seemed to be pretty good odds we'd be the main music act at the Pirate's Pub stage there, so our show would have to be centered around pub songs, at least during the "attention getting" phase of each show.
Originally, Ken was just recruiting people for the band he was already in, called The River Wynde Minstrels (and we have to tell you, some of us really loved that name). The band grew to something like seven members. Such a configuration drastically improves the options for the nature of the music you can do -- but simultaneously increases the amount of musical discipline required to avoid sounding like a jam session on stage.
But then, shortly after the band started making progress on its structure and repertoire, there arose difficulties between band members. This is, of couse, not uncommon in bands. Several members decided to go their own way, for the most part. That left us with four -- Ken, Melissa, Annie and Steve.

Baby Needs A New Name
As it happens, two of the departing members were the ones who founded River Wynde; Ken had actually joined them after they were established. To make matters worse, they were considering a contract with the Renaissance Festival under the old name, which they really had every right to do. So -- we really had to find a new name.
We came up with a number of ideas; Ken had become keen on being called "Bard", "Bard Ken", or "Bardkin" in his Ren Faire persona, and Melissa came up with Bard 'n Us. It was a wonderful pun, but the management at the Renaissance Festival didn't think the name was as marketable as it could be. Though we were miffed that Faire management thought they should be in any way involved in naming our band, we really wanted the gig -- so we went back to the drawing board.

Steve Mariner, circa 2003.
Photo by Minka Ricker

Melissa Cournoyer, circa 2003.
Photo by Minka Ricker

Try Again
We listed a ton of names, some wandering into Celtic history, some into Greek mythology. Some were focused on drinking or the pub scene where we expected to be playing, and others were inspired by (or directly lifted from) the titles of songs or tunes we found in our music books. Others just sounded cool. You know, all the basic stuff bands go through when they're desperately trying to become inspired to name themselves.
We settled on Roustabout. Now, a roustabout is a guy who works on a floating oil rig, and he's kind of the "gopher" (go fer this, go fer that) -- the guy who runs around helping everyone else with anything they're in too awkward a position to do for themselves conveniently. But the very structure of the word brings to mind images of a guy who's in a bar and being feisty, so we thought that was kind of neat and new.
Well, CRF management thought most people wouldn't be able to relate to the name, and asked us to try again. We were really irritated about them continuing to meddle in the selection of our name, but the same rules still applied -- we wanted the headlining gig, so we had to deal with the devil, so to speak. Back to the table.

Once More, With Feeling
In a fit of near-surrender, Ken & Melissa thought we could just use Greencastle, but Annie and Steve had long decided that the legacy of Greencastle should be kept intact. Besides, Greencastle was what it was because of the interaction specifically between Rowan, Annie and Steve, and both Annie and Steve more or less thought it would be dishonoring Rowan's very significant influence on the band to reuse the name without him.
Then Annie revisited the idea of using a name she'd suggested early on, one she'd come up with during the year she and Steve were away from County Cork. By now, the name was growing on Melissa, and though Ken wasn't completely happy with it, he found it acceptable. More importantly, it seemed really likely that CRF management would probably buy into it. And so, in our moment of glory, so to speak, we told them we'd be The Whirly Jig Minstrels, and they liked it.
Whirly Jig was born.

Whirly Jig, circa 2003.
Photo by Jan Mariner

Thing-A-Ma-Jig Cover.
Layout by Amy Anzlovar

Thing-A-Ma-Jig
The band set out to make its first CD. A recording contract was secured, a loan was taken out to cover it, and some other investors were found to help cover start-up expenses (such as this web site, photography for the CD cover, printing costs, etc.)
Early on it became clear that Ken and Steve had radically different experiences with how to go about making CDs -- and this led to no end of arguments and complaints and even studio production problems.
When they weren't in the Studio, however, Steve pointed out that Fleetwood Mac had similar issues with studio time in particular; they'd fight and get angry and go home from the studio mad about what had happened, but the next morning when everyone got their coffee to listen to yesterday's work, they were solid gold. Other days, everything went smoothly, everyone was happy -- and next morning everyone would agree the tracks were crap.
Steve's theory was that the creative energy caused a bit of an egotistical attachment to the result, which meant strong egos were likely to be in disagreement. However, the passion which caused the friction was akin to the flame in metallurgy -- it was needed to make a good alloy.
Since we had four albums planned, we actually recorded tracks for all of them, depending on who was available to get into the studio. This ultimately turned out to be a bad idea; we ran seriously overschedule and overbudget before the first album was completed. Furthermore, we hadn't pressed the issue of getting copies of the master tracks from the studio as dilligently as we should have, and so when the studio collapsed a few months later, we lost all that work.
Regardless, the band finished the album barely in time for the last weekend of the Colorado Renaissance Festival that first year, and sold enough copies to pay off most of the loans taken out to fund the production.

Wax and Wane
For several years, the performances got better. A few new songs here, a few new arrangements there, and a painfully long growth towards the kind of banter on stage that made the show fun.
The band took road trips to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, the Ravenshire Festival out in Grand Junction, and did a full run at the Florida Renaissance Festival. We were invited to a number of other festivals, including Ontario and Pennsylvania. And we played a few local gigs here and there, as opportunity permitted.
However, Mel, and later, Ken, found themselves parents of new babies in this time, and so the band's activities dwindled to showing up to do gigs, with a very occassional rehearsal.
Eventually, in 2007, the energy in the band reached an all time low. The spark, the passion, the verve -- all seemingly dead and gone.
So we prepared to address the logistics of breaking up the band -- splitting CDs, ironing out rights to the CDs, other band equipment, etc. We held a short meeting to discuss how to break up the band -- but instead we wrote a song.
Next thing you know, the band's got energy, drive, creativity -- and we were picking up speed again.

Whirly Jig at KCRF in 2007
Photo by Granger Meador

See the Whirly Jig history continue at:

Whirly Jig 1.5 - The Tumultuous Years

Whirly Jig c/o Pendar Productions 3455 S. Patton Way Denver, CO 80236-2425

Webmaster:		`webmaster@whirlyjigmusic.com`
Booking Information:		`booking@whirlyjigmusic.com`
Sales:		`sales@whirlyjigmusic.com`

	History of Whirly Jig This guy named Ken (whom Steve happened to know previously, but his looks had changed significantly and it took Steve a month or so to realize he'd actually met Ken before) approached Annie and Steve about putting together a band; he didn't know how to describe what he wanted, but when he was done making a rather gallant effort to do so, it was pretty clear that he was looking for a folk band that could hammer out good instrumentation, solid and powerful harmony, and give off lots of energy the way a rock band might -- but without being disrespectful to the folk genre. This is what has been dubbed by some Renaissance Festival performers as a "power band". It was the sort of band that Greencastle (Annie and Steve's previous Ren Faire band) had been, or at least was close to being, and sort of what County Cork might have done under other circumstances. It was in any regard precisely what Steve had been aiming for since he started doing music professionally. Annie was excited at the prospect of getting to play Celtic music again. She had left County Cork a year previously, and was itching to play again. Steve, on the other hand, had left County Cork with a desire to stay away from music for a year and away from bands for two years. So at this point in time, Steve really didn't want to join another band. However, opportunity knocks but once. And so, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Steve came out of musical retirement a year earlier than he had planned. He couldn't let this guy go; there was too much risk he'd never see the chance again. Power bands are, unfortunately, somewhat rare in Renaissance Festival circles. Those that earn the title tend to go off and make real money elsewhere, usually, because they can. The handful that remain on the Renaissance Festival circuit do so because they love the Faire (and, often, the lifestyle it brings). But getting three, four or five people with the kind of Ego it requires just to do this sort of thing -- and then further get them to all agree to do it at a Renaissance Festival -- is itself an even more rare event. There wasn't room in Steve's schedule, and he knew it was going to rack him up for awhile, but it felt like it was the right time. So he agreed to join Ken's band.				Ken Rowe, circa 2003. Photo by Minka Ricker
	Annie Mariner, circa 2003. Photo by Minka Ricker				The Band Grows -- And Shrinks Our primary venue, at first, was to be the Colorado Renaissance Festival since we'd all worked there before, and because it's a reasonably good place for a folk band to sell CDs. We dabbled with ideas of what other kinds of places we'd do gigs, of course, as any fledgling band will do, but we knew our first target was to be ready to audition for CRF. And there seemed to be pretty good odds we'd be the main music act at the Pirate's Pub stage there, so our show would have to be centered around pub songs, at least during the "attention getting" phase of each show. Originally, Ken was just recruiting people for the band he was already in, called The River Wynde Minstrels (and we have to tell you, some of us really loved that name). The band grew to something like seven members. Such a configuration drastically improves the options for the nature of the music you can do -- but simultaneously increases the amount of musical discipline required to avoid sounding like a jam session on stage. But then, shortly after the band started making progress on its structure and repertoire, there arose difficulties between band members. This is, of couse, not uncommon in bands. Several members decided to go their own way, for the most part. That left us with four -- Ken, Melissa, Annie and Steve.
	Baby Needs A New Name As it happens, two of the departing members were the ones who founded River Wynde; Ken had actually joined them after they were established. To make matters worse, they were considering a contract with the Renaissance Festival under the old name, which they really had every right to do. So -- we really had to find a new name. We came up with a number of ideas; Ken had become keen on being called "Bard", "Bard Ken", or "Bardkin" in his Ren Faire persona, and Melissa came up with Bard 'n Us. It was a wonderful pun, but the management at the Renaissance Festival didn't think the name was as marketable as it could be. Though we were miffed that Faire management thought they should be in any way involved in naming our band, we really wanted the gig -- so we went back to the drawing board.				Steve Mariner, circa 2003. Photo by Minka Ricker
	Melissa Cournoyer, circa 2003. Photo by Minka Ricker				Try Again We listed a ton of names, some wandering into Celtic history, some into Greek mythology. Some were focused on drinking or the pub scene where we expected to be playing, and others were inspired by (or directly lifted from) the titles of songs or tunes we found in our music books. Others just sounded cool. You know, all the basic stuff bands go through when they're desperately trying to become inspired to name themselves. We settled on Roustabout. Now, a roustabout is a guy who works on a floating oil rig, and he's kind of the "gopher" (go fer this, go fer that) -- the guy who runs around helping everyone else with anything they're in too awkward a position to do for themselves conveniently. But the very structure of the word brings to mind images of a guy who's in a bar and being feisty, so we thought that was kind of neat and new. Well, CRF management thought most people wouldn't be able to relate to the name, and asked us to try again. We were really irritated about them continuing to meddle in the selection of our name, but the same rules still applied -- we wanted the headlining gig, so we had to deal with the devil, so to speak. Back to the table.
	Once More, With Feeling In a fit of near-surrender, Ken & Melissa thought we could just use Greencastle, but Annie and Steve had long decided that the legacy of Greencastle should be kept intact. Besides, Greencastle was what it was because of the interaction specifically between Rowan, Annie and Steve, and both Annie and Steve more or less thought it would be dishonoring Rowan's very significant influence on the band to reuse the name without him. Then Annie revisited the idea of using a name she'd suggested early on, one she'd come up with during the year she and Steve were away from County Cork. By now, the name was growing on Melissa, and though Ken wasn't completely happy with it, he found it acceptable. More importantly, it seemed really likely that CRF management would probably buy into it. And so, in our moment of glory, so to speak, we told them we'd be The Whirly Jig Minstrels, and they liked it. Whirly Jig was born.				Whirly Jig, circa 2003. Photo by Jan Mariner
	Thing-A-Ma-Jig Cover. Layout by Amy Anzlovar				Thing-A-Ma-Jig The band set out to make its first CD. A recording contract was secured, a loan was taken out to cover it, and some other investors were found to help cover start-up expenses (such as this web site, photography for the CD cover, printing costs, etc.) Early on it became clear that Ken and Steve had radically different experiences with how to go about making CDs -- and this led to no end of arguments and complaints and even studio production problems. When they weren't in the Studio, however, Steve pointed out that Fleetwood Mac had similar issues with studio time in particular; they'd fight and get angry and go home from the studio mad about what had happened, but the next morning when everyone got their coffee to listen to yesterday's work, they were solid gold. Other days, everything went smoothly, everyone was happy -- and next morning everyone would agree the tracks were crap. Steve's theory was that the creative energy caused a bit of an egotistical attachment to the result, which meant strong egos were likely to be in disagreement. However, the passion which caused the friction was akin to the flame in metallurgy -- it was needed to make a good alloy. Since we had four albums planned, we actually recorded tracks for all of them, depending on who was available to get into the studio. This ultimately turned out to be a bad idea; we ran seriously overschedule and overbudget before the first album was completed. Furthermore, we hadn't pressed the issue of getting copies of the master tracks from the studio as dilligently as we should have, and so when the studio collapsed a few months later, we lost all that work. Regardless, the band finished the album barely in time for the last weekend of the Colorado Renaissance Festival that first year, and sold enough copies to pay off most of the loans taken out to fund the production.
	Wax and Wane For several years, the performances got better. A few new songs here, a few new arrangements there, and a painfully long growth towards the kind of banter on stage that made the show fun. The band took road trips to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, the Ravenshire Festival out in Grand Junction, and did a full run at the Florida Renaissance Festival. We were invited to a number of other festivals, including Ontario and Pennsylvania. And we played a few local gigs here and there, as opportunity permitted. However, Mel, and later, Ken, found themselves parents of new babies in this time, and so the band's activities dwindled to showing up to do gigs, with a very occassional rehearsal. Eventually, in 2007, the energy in the band reached an all time low. The spark, the passion, the verve -- all seemingly dead and gone. So we prepared to address the logistics of breaking up the band -- splitting CDs, ironing out rights to the CDs, other band equipment, etc. We held a short meeting to discuss how to break up the band -- but instead we wrote a song. Next thing you know, the band's got energy, drive, creativity -- and we were picking up speed again.				Whirly Jig at KCRF in 2007 Photo by Granger Meador