[Spotlight Post] The Bedlam Bards
It’s Friday spotlight time and I’ve had Celtic music on my mind this week. I’ve also had a frustrating morning, so I’m trying to bring something FUN to mind. So, this week I’m featuring The Bedlam Bards.
The Bedlam Bards are a Celtic duo that play renaissance festivals, science fiction conventions, and just about anywhere else people will have them. I’ve actually passed them a lot in my travels. We’ve been at the same place at the same time for years, but moving in different orbits. It wasn’t until this past January at ConJour that I got to spend any time with them, and realized what I’ve missed.
Cedric and Hawke are the primary members of Bedlam Bards…they sometimes have a 3rd, Lilly, but mostly I’ve seen and dealt with Cedric and Hawke. They play all the traditional music and instruments, but also have some “fannish” music. I personal picked up Firefly Drinking Songs = a project they did with Mark Gunn – that combines (for a second time) traditional Celtic music with Joss Whedon’s Firefly/Serenity universe. Yes, fan fiction set to music (known in the SF convention world as “filk”). I need to pull Jimmy’s copy of On the Drift (more Firefly music) onto my iPod.
What I like most about these guys (I’ve never met Lilly) is that they’re FUN. They promise that on their website, and they don’t lie. They are just a hoot and a half–and they appreciate the “Power of the Redheads”. Which is a funny story in and of itself.
A couple of us started a “write in” campaign to maybe try to talk a Renaissance Faire into having their off-season Celtic Festival on a weekend other than FenCon, so more of US could participate in their event and Bedlam Bards could come participate in ours. Well, it didn’t seem to work…until I was told that the Bedlam Bards were “excused” from the Celtic Festival to do FenCon. It’s a hollow victory, because I would’ve loved to have done both, but now I need to carve some time out of all my FenCon duties to see them play. Come check them out with me, won’t you?
2 Comments
Thanks for the kind words–we really enjoyed getting to meet you.
BTW, we’ll still be doing the Sherwood Celtic Festival on Sunday, but we’ll do FenCon on Friday and Saturday. We really don’t need to sleep in between, do we?
I won’t be getting any sleep, why should you. 😎