Hello!
Hope your having a great summer so far!
Its been a little while since i've written here so I thought I would let you know what i've been up to this summer so far.
June was a very enjoyable month. I was fortunate enough to be involved in the fantastic Haukelisetter Festival in Norway. It takes place in the most amazing setting imaginable away up in the mountains. Its was a great weekend with many fantastic acts playing. Hopefully I will make it back next year, I thoroughly recommend it!!
After that I went on my summer holidays to the south of France. I had never been there before and would definately go back!
Next up was Ethno which is always a pleasure to be involved in. This was my 3rd year working as an artistic leader along with Mattias Perez, Nina Anderberg, Susanne Lind and Ian Carr who are fantastic people to work with. There were 19 countries involved this year including India and Nepal which were new additions so it was fantastic to learn some new music.
A big thanks to everyone involved this year and also to Rikskonserter Sweden for having me again.
I went straight to Belgium after Ethno with Fiddlers' Bid to play at the Gooikoorts Festival. It was the bands first trip to Belgium and it was hopefully not the last as it was a great weekend! It was nice having a non stop supply of the finest Belgian beer available all night! The concert went well and it was great to have Olav Johansson from the Swedish band Väsen up for a couple of tunes! Thanks to Patrick and everyone else involved in the festival for having us and also to all our hosts for looking after us so well. Hope to see you again soon!
I then headed off to Spain the following weekend with Boys of the Lough to the Ortiguera Festival in the Basque region. It was great fun playing to around 10000 people who were in fantastic fettle despite the downpour! It was an eventful trip getting there as I missed my connection in Spain due to a delayed flight from Norway so I had to buy a new ticket and the only class left was business so im in the process of trying to sort that out with the travel insurance.......................
The north of Norway was the next port of call. I was there helping with some translation for a Norwegian company who has designed a organisational software package for festivals. It was my first visit to the North and I will definately be back. It is one of the most beautiful places I have been! I was lucky to get out fishing and there were some big fish!! And im not lying!!!
I have just got back from Ireland where I was playing at the Celtic Fusion Festival with Session A9. It was the bands first visit there and we had a great time! Thanks to the festival for inviting us!
I have a little break now which i'm very happy about. I head to Bergen in a couple of weeks to play at the Tall Ships race there so that should be fun!
Hope you all have a great summer!
All the best,
Kevin

Hello there,
Just a quick update on what ive been up to the past few weeks.
At the end of April I had a concert in Bergen with Annika Westgård, Olav Tvietane and Trent Bruner in the fantastic Columbi Egg folk music club. It was a great evening playing to a packed, enthusiastic audience.
The following day I was teaching at a workshop for an Ethno Music course at the Fana Folke Høgskulle, just outside Bergen. It was a thoroughly enjoyable morning teaching some Shetland tunes and even a song!
I then headed over to Shetland for the folk festival. I always try to get home for that weekend as its always a highlight of the year!
I was playing with fellow Boys of the Lougher, Brendan Begley up on the island of Yell. It was an amazing day from start to finish and we were blessed with fabulous weather!
Also performing there was the Henrik Jansberg Band from Denmark, Breabach from Scotland, The David Munnelly Band from Ireland and American guitarist, Andy Mckee.
One of the day's highlights' was the mighty session that took place on the way back to Lerwick which saw the session move off the bus and on to the ferry deck for the crossing back to the mainland. The ferry men had a small problem getting it to stop when we docked at the other side!!
The rest of the weekend was full of great concerts, sessions and good craic. Roll on the next one!
After the Shetland festival I was on tour with Session A9 for 10 days. It was great to be on the road promoting the new album and it gave us a chance to perform some of the new material live which is always good!
We were based in the wonderful Alvie House Estate just outside Aviemore and were supplied with fantastic fresh eggs for the mornings after! A huge thanks to everybody there for their fantastic hospitality and a huge thanks to all the venues for having us. We had a ball!
This past weekend Fiddlers' Bid were rehearsing up material for a new album so that went very well. We managed to come up with some more new material so we are keen to get into the studio to get recording!
Next up for me is a concert in Fort William with Session A9 so looking forward to that.
Im then going on holiday to the south of France which im very excited about as ive never been there before.
Until next time............

Hello there,
Thought I would give you a quick update on what ive been up to the past month or so.
I got back from the Boys of the Lough tour in the US a couple of weeks ago. The tour went very well apart from a slight blip in the middle where we ran into very bad snow in Ohio and were confined to the hotel for 3 days without being able to go outside! Because of that we lost 2 gigs, 1 in Ohio and the other in South Dakota which was a pity.
It was our guitarist, Malcolm Stitts last tour with the band which is a shame :-(
He has decided to give up playing professionally so he will be a big miss. We wish him all the best.

After returning from the US I had a concert on the island of Skätøy in the south east of Norway with my girlfriend, Annika Westgård who plays Hardanger fiddle and sings. The crowd was very appreciative and it was a thouroughly enjoyable evening! I did wonder if it would actually go ahead as there was a very heavy snow fall the night before. I had a bit of deja vu!!!!

This week I had the pleasure of teaching some Shetland music to an Ethno music course in Fana, just outside Bergen and then travelled to London to play at Anne Cleaves new book launch. The book is set in Shetland and without telling you too much there is a fiddler in the story!
It was a great evening with Shetland food laid on and a reading from the book by Marnie Baxter from Shetland who is an actress based in London. I played a few Shetland fiddle tunes throughout the night.

The next thing for me is a concert in Bergen at the end of the month with Annika, Olav Tveitane, a great musician from Bergen and Trent Bruner from Canada who is a fantastic piano player so im looking forward to that!
All the best for now,
Kevin

Hi there!
Hope your all well!
Its been a very busy couple of the months with various bits and pieces.
I had a couple of gigs at Celtic Connections with Fiddlers' Bid and Session A9.
Fiddlers' Bid was involved in a 'Shetland Night' there which was huge success!
Also playing was the Jim Halcrow Band, Bryan Gear, Filska, Rock Salt and Nails, Lise Sinclair, The Cullivoe Fiddlers, Hom Bru and Aly Bain and Violet Tulloch. There was also a special tribute to the late 'Peerie Willie Johnson' from guitarist, Martin Taylor who was also joined on stage by Ryan Cooper, a fantastic young guitarist from Shetland. A great night was had by all!
Session A9 released our brand new CD, 'Bottlenecks and Arm Breakers' at our Celtic Connections gig in ABC. It was great to finally get the CD out and its had great feed back so far!
I travelled over to Ireland at the start of February to do some recording on a new CD from American singer, Shannon L Ryan. It was great to be involved in the project and hopefully the CD should be out soon!
Following that I was in Norway playing with Mark Laurenson, a great fiddler from Shetland at the 'Rauland Festival' in Norway which was a fantastic weekend!
We had a Shetland fiddle workshop as well as playing in the Saturday night concert.
I was suppose to leave on the Sunday but bad snow and wind meant I had to stay an extra night which was great as some Hungarian musicians laid on a Hungarian evening for everybody that was still there and made a huge pot of goulash which was so delicious!!!!!
A huge thanks to Ånon Egeland and everybody involved at the festival for having us there!
Ive just arrived in the US to start a tour with Boys of the Lough which is the bands 70th tour of the US! They started touring here before I was born!!!!!!
More news soon!
All the best,
Kevin

Hi There!
Its been a little while since I wrote an update so I thought I would just very quickly say how 2007 ended on the gig front.
It was a very busy end to the year with a tour of the US with Boys of the Lough. It was the bands 69th tour there which is an amazing achievement. It was a very hectic tour but enjoyable none the less. We were lucky with the weather as the US had some bad snow which nearly got us! We were also lucky that we had a gig down in Florida so the weather was fantastic there!
Another highlight for me was getting to sample the Honky Tonk bars in Nashville which really was fantastic! A big thanks to fellow Shetlander Lynda Anderson who is living there for showing Brendan and I the places to go!
At the end of February we set off for the 70th tour so we are looking forward to that!
The last gig for me in 2007 was playing at a book launch in Shetland just before Christmas.
It was the launch of a "trowie" book that has been compiled over the past 3 years or so and really is a fantastic read! We played a few Trowie tunes and there were a few Trowie yarns too so it was a very enjoyable afternoon! There were also a few Trowie nibbles laid on to keep the hunger away and I particularly enjoyed the Trowie Bogeys!!!!!!!
So that was the end 0f 2007. Its hard to think we are in 2008 now, a scary thought! If 2008 is half as enjoyable as 2007 was I will be happy with that.
I will sign off for now by wishing you a Happy New Year and all the best for 08!
Kevin

Hi everybody!
Just returned from a tour of the USA with Boys of the Lough which has been my 15th tour of the states with the band to date.
We had a 2 week tour playing various venues in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Minnasota before heading down to Georgia for a recording project. It was a collaboration with Norman and Nancy Blake and James and Rachael Bryan. Norman Blake was Johnny Cash and Bob Dylans guitarist for a good number of years and was also involved in the music for 'O Brother Where Art Thou' as well as other major films. He has also been up for Grammy nominations on numerous occasions. It was fantastic rehearsing recording and making music together and it was one of the most amazing musical experiences of my life. It was recorded the 'old style' with us playing totally live sitting in a circle so no mistakes allowed!! That was a great experience in itself!
Hopefully the album will be out soon.
The next thing up for me is a Boys of the Lough gig at the Brunton Theatre in Mussleburgh so im looking forward to that.
Hope to see some of you there!
All the best,
Kevin

Hello there,
Hope you all had a great summer!
I cant believe we are in September already! Where has this year gone??????
Its been a very busy summer with festivals etc.
At the end of July Fiddlers' Bid headed down to the Cambridge Folk Festival to play. The gigs went very well and you can catch some of the show on BBC later in the year!
After our Sunday night appearance I headed off to Gatwick to fly to the US where I met up with Boys of the Lough for a week long tour which was great fun! We had a few gigs before finishing up the week at the Dublin Irish Festival in Ohio. We had a fantastic time there and I saw the worst thunder and lightning I had ever seen on our last day there!
After that I headed up to Shetland to play and teach at the Fiddle Frenzy festival in Shetland.
Fiddlers' Bid played on the opening night of the festival and we played to a sell out crowd in the Garrison Theater. A great night was had by all and everyone headed to the Lerwick Boating Club and then Da Lounge to continue afterwards!
The next few days I was teaching in Nesting, Lerwick and Yell and I had a thoroughly enjoyable week working with the class. We went through loads of stuff and I would like to thank them for being so great to work with! Fionan De Barra and myself had a wee gig in the middle of the week at the Nesting Hall alongside Brian Gear and Violet Tulloch and Maurice Henderson and Andrew Gifford. It was a great night with Davie Gardner asking us all questions throughout the concert about our musical lives so far. There were some funny moments!!!!
A huge thank you to Richard Weymes for asking me to teach and perform at the festival and to Fionan De Barra for playing.
Last weekend I was lucky enough to be at the fantastic Tonder Festival in Denmark with Session A9.
It is my favourite festival and we had an amazing weekend! There were some great bands on and some fantastic sessions throughout the weekend as well as the fantastic curry night!!
Session A9 also had a photo shoot at 11am on one of the days which was not so good for me as I didn't make it to bed with all the great sessions that were taking place! I think photoshop may be required for that one!!!!
Im off up to Shetland this weekend to rehearse and get material ready for a new Fiddlers' Bid album so im really looking forward to that! We also have a wee acoustic gig on Tuesday night in the Eshaness Hall so it would be great to see some of you there!!
All the best,
Kevin