Everything leaves us, everything stays.
Jan. 25th, 2017 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seanan_mcguireSometimes I look back at my own teenage years, tangled and tempestuous as they were, and wonder if I knew how lucky I was, musically speaking. The Counting Crows still played at the U.C. Berkeley on-campus club; Heather Alexander was both local and frequently touring; Celtic rock was having a resurgence, with Avalon Rising and Four Shillings Short playing somewhere almost every weekend.
And there was Annwn.
They were weirdos. They were wonderful. They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up. The idea of making Elton or Leigh Anne proud of me was enough to motivate me to do almost anything. I got to have a relationship with them, to know them as humans and artists and creators and people who let their freak flags fly proudly and without fear. I am the adult I am because they were there to be an example for the confused child I was.
Leigh Anne died in 2006. I still miss her. I will always miss her. Annwn died with her. Even if the band had wanted to continue, there was no replacing Leigh Anne. She was absolutely one of a kind.
For a long time, their music has been unavailable. Now, that's changing, and one of their best albums, Come Away to the Hills has been made available for purchase, as has the one album she recorded with Daoine Sidhe, Now and Then, which you can access here.
If you love Celtic rock and folk music, please give a listen.
This is one of the voices that made me.
And there was Annwn.
They were weirdos. They were wonderful. They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up. The idea of making Elton or Leigh Anne proud of me was enough to motivate me to do almost anything. I got to have a relationship with them, to know them as humans and artists and creators and people who let their freak flags fly proudly and without fear. I am the adult I am because they were there to be an example for the confused child I was.
Leigh Anne died in 2006. I still miss her. I will always miss her. Annwn died with her. Even if the band had wanted to continue, there was no replacing Leigh Anne. She was absolutely one of a kind.
For a long time, their music has been unavailable. Now, that's changing, and one of their best albums, Come Away to the Hills has been made available for purchase, as has the one album she recorded with Daoine Sidhe, Now and Then, which you can access here.
If you love Celtic rock and folk music, please give a listen.
This is one of the voices that made me.
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no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 01:44 am (UTC)I had the unrecognized-at-the-time luck of coming across a copy of Come Away to the Hills at a Palo Alto library booksale some time around 2007, bought it on a whim (because that is the point of library booksales!) and fell in love with it as soon as I played it.
I shall be buying Now and Then as soon as I get to an internet connection with appropriate bandwidth.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 05:00 am (UTC)Edit: OMG! It's got the original for the "Black Flag" filk! I never knew where to get that! THANK YOU!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-27 06:49 am (UTC)See, back in December, I had $15 in Roundworm royalties to pay Elton. It was a small amount of money -- but enough to trigger an unwanted 1099 form. So he suggested I donate it to charity.
I countered that we create our own (virtual) charity dedicated to putting Leigh Ann's music back in distribution, and use it as a downpayment towards the first project. Elton was super agreeable, and I'll spare you the rest.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 05:25 am (UTC)I do have to admit there are two songs on the album that don't do it for me: "Welcome in the May" (which I find to be a bit...sniggery) and "Sunday Afternoon in Upper Wallop" (which is just "What were they thinking?"). Leave out those two, though and you have an album which truly merits the word "great".
no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 05:52 am (UTC)To absent friends, in memory yet bright.
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Date: 2017-01-26 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-26 06:40 pm (UTC)Thank you.
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Date: 2017-01-27 06:26 am (UTC)And thank you so much to everyone who bought one of the downloads. I am working with Elton to get all of Annwn's recordings available in the places where people listen to music today -- Spotify, iTunes, etc.
And every penny of the purchases you've all made are going towards making that possible. We're ready to get "The Lovers Enchained" up in the next week, and "A Barroom Bransle" is next. And all of you here just paid for it (thank you!)
P.S. If you buy, I recommend the CD Baby links that Seanan used. We get 90% of the money, and you get 20% off (vs. iTunes).
no subject
Date: 2017-01-27 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-28 04:37 am (UTC)I could comment on this post when new albums go up, if you would be getting a notification?
Or if you have a better idea, I'm all ears.
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Date: 2017-02-05 01:36 am (UTC)* The Lovers Enchained - https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/annwn3
* A Barroom Bransle (Musick for the Current Middle Ages) - https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/annwn2
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Date: 2017-01-27 06:34 am (UTC)But those are ancient 128 KB MP3s -- in an era where many of us demand higher quality rips, or have set aside our old iPods and listen entirely on Spotify or Google Play.
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Date: 2017-01-28 02:03 am (UTC)I look at the sentence I just typed, and I think, "Was?" My fuzzy memories of her can still inspire me, if I let them.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-28 03:14 am (UTC)I'll have to check Annwn out!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-29 08:41 pm (UTC)