Greetings to one and all, after a long gap in news and updates! Hope you like our new, funky site, thank you Mr. ROC for your wonderful expertise and new Mac! So what have we been up to since we last spoke? So much has happened, both good and bad, I've got to bullet point it, otherwise I'll forget things.
]]> We have been signed onto the books of a company in London called Continental Drifts. This is a pretty big deal for us, as these guys have a hand in programming a lot of big music festivals and street festivals around the UK, Europe, America and beyond! Since we're not the kind of band that could get 'signed to a label', this is our equivalent. As you can imagine, we're delighted and excited about this, hopefully it'll mean a lot more traveling to distant lands to do what we do.We've also entered ourselves into a competition to play at this years Glastonbury. Although we're amongst thousands of bands who have entered, you never know...!
Finally, and this time its true, we're actually getting down to some recording. People have been asking us for years and we've been threatening to do this for years too, but at the moment, we're organising a venue and a date. We expect it done by mid-March.
We've recently been played on our local radio station, WLR, by the one and only Roddy Cleere. We were very surprised at this, but happy too! Hopefully this means our latest recordings might get some airplay too.
We've got a new member too, Niall Hogan, some may know him as the drummer with the Deaf Animal Orchestra but we know him as new-Niall. Niall joined us in November, to replace Ken, who left in September to work in the sunnier climes of India.
That brings me onto a sad piece of news. Ken, a member since we started back in 2002, left this world on January 19th 2007, after an illness that started on Christmas day 2006. Ken was a huge part of Torann, when things were getting tedious for us, he would always bring his charm and enthusiasm into play and re-energise us. We had always felt we were missing something in our performances, and one day, Ken showed us all what it was. Since then, we've gone from strength to strength, each year doing more and traveling further.
Those of you that have seen us will no doubt remember the crazy ginger Kerryman whipping the crowd up and generally dancing badly around the streets, waving his arms in the air and shouting till absolutely hoarse. Our hardest gig ever was on Monday 22nd January this year, when we played at his graveside but we knew he was there with us. We firmly believe that somewhere out there, Keith Moon has been kicked out of a band whose members include Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix & Phil Lynott to be replaced by the greatest rock drummer of all time, Ken Flavin. He will always be with us, at every gig we play. Ken Flavin, our seventh member for ever, RIP my friend.
]]>
]]>
Spraoi is over for another year, and it went pretty well for us, despite rain falling on the Sunday, stopping our last gig from going ahead. It's all change now, with Ken leaving to go onto more tropical climes in India, and Niall strolling down the aisle.