Hello Everyone !!
It’s been a long, long time since we have written a blog and there has been A LOT of stuff going on !! Not that we haven’t wanted to share what we have been up to, but sometimes things come up (cross country road trips, deathly ill  band members, wild van driving  monkeys kidnapping us and holding us for ransom……stuff like that). Frankly, we owe this blog to our fan Megan Levine. She suggested that we update and it’s her birthday, so Megan, this is your gift from Needfire !! Sorry we didn’t wrap it for you !!
Since the last time we updated everyone, we have been back to Florida. We played in Jacksonville in late February. Every once in awhile, we grab a Friday night pub show in a town we’re visiting. Culhane’s Pub was kind enough to put us up for a gig, and without fail, they delivered a great night for us. Pub shows are always fun, with a standard amount of drunken fools and a few rabid locals who love to blurt out entertaining quips about their children, as such, “My son played fiddle for two days in sixth grade !!” That’s fantastic ma’am. Thank you for the story.  The next day was a little less entertaining, but still fun. We played the NORTHEAST FLORIDA SCOTTISH GAMES AND FESTIVAL and they were great as always. We shared the stage with Mother Grove and Highland Reign. Both artists were great to work with, and amazing people to boot. The weekend went very well and we made some new friends and some new fans as well. Thank you to everyone involved for your hospitality.

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Our next “show”  was back in Dallas, an early morning performance on FOX 4 television. We have played GOOD DAY before and it is always so much fun doing television. Lauren and Tim are great people and great anchors. We were supporting our newest CD, CHASING ORION , and also pushing our performance at The NORTH TEXAS IRISH FESTIVAL. It was exciting to be back in the public eye, and television teaches the virtues of patience.

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The North Texas Irish Festival is one of the largest festivals in the whole country, and it’s in our own backyard !! We always have a great time there and we share the stage with so many great bands that it amazes us that there is so much talent involved.  This year, we played one Friday show, one Saturday show, and one on Sunday.  It’s nice to not have to do marathon sets and have some extra time to enjoy watching our friends play.  Our friend, Josh King,  joined us on MAGGIE OH MAGGIE during the weekend and he sounded great. Josh is amazing didge player and a super nice guy. You may have seen him guest with our friends in BROTHER at previous NTIF shows. Thank you Josh for sharing your talent. WE LOVE YOU MAN !! A huge thanks to everyone involved with NTIF !! It is so nice to be treated so well !!

After we spent some time in our home state, we headed for beautiful California. We love playing in California because we have some great fans out there and we always get to see our Kilt Lasses from MACKINNON’S KILTS. These ladies are wonderful and have become great friends of ours, and many times have been our therapists. THANK YOU LASSES !! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH !!
I must interject a story here. This displays the sweet and caring nature of the members of Needfire. On the Thursday night we arrived in Fresno, we grabbed a hotel. Ed and Mandy went to their room to catch some sleep. John also decided to get some shut eye for the night, but The Three Muskateers decided to hang out and mess around with Brad’s gear. Mikey, Brad and myself (Matt) were taking it easy, kickin’ back and shooting the breeze. Sounds simple and uneventful, right ?? WRONG !! We had a fly in our room, and he wasn’t a small fly. I thought it was a small commuter jet off course from the airport. It landed on the ceiling, so I tried to swat it with the latest issue of Modern Drummer. Being a drummer, I SHOULD have decent aim. NOT REALLY. Missed it completely. It took flight, stopping in the corner of the door. I’ll try again. MISSED AGAIN, now he’s not real happy, eyeing me down and challenging me to take another shot !! BRING IT ON FORTY EYES !! YOU’RE GOING DOWN !!! It lands on the light fixture, the kind with a fragile glass globe. I line up, thinking of the best possible way to NOT damage the glass. Now, mind you, Mikey and Brad are watching this whole fiasco unfold, not saying a word. For about 30 seconds, they remain silent until I take a swing. The windup, the swing……I KILLED IT !!!  The glass globe, I’ve killed the globe !! That baby came off of the fixture and dropped, IN SLOW MOTION, shattering in a thousand pieces !! We all broke into a heavy cough inducing laughter and literally rolled and the floor laughing, or ROFL for you texters out there !! Only after the damage was done, did my wonderful friends say, “We were thinking you weren’t really going to do it, but then you did.” OF COURSE I DID !! So much for saving me from myself. Thanks guys. Love ya’. No, really, thanks a lot. Thank God for midnight trash can dumping. Management won’t notice or at minimum, Ed won’t notice. Until it shows up on his credit card. Love ya’ Eddie !! Incidentally, no flies were harmed in the making of this story.

THE SONORA CELTIC FAIRE in Sonora, California is a great event and we always have a great time playing there. It’s a big party starting on Friday night and rolling through the weekend. We played Friday night for the Ceili event and had a blast.!! A HUGE thank you to Walter and the band 1916 for sharing the drum kit and stage with us on Friday night. Also, we played with Sligo Rags, Winked Tinkers, Molly’s Revenge, Black Irish and Nine 8ths Irish over the weekend.  All of these great musicians have become good friends of ours and once again, they are all wonderful people !! We had multiple guests over the weekend too. Chris Dunlap from Nine 8ths came up Saturday and put some AMAZING bodhran parts on Gravel Walks. David Brewer from Molly’s Revenge  joined us on the same song  playing whistle, and he did not disappoint !! Thank you both so much for sharing your talents…..GREAT MUSICIANS !! We love you guys !! A big thanks to Tom Meninga for posting some great videos on YOUTUBE. Tom, said simply, you ROCK my friend !!

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Now here is where things get interesting !! When we left California, Ed was rather ill. When we say rather ill, we mean close to death, but not “see the light” death. He had to get rid of his dinner, so we pulled over, he wrapped himself in a Hannah Montana blanket (don’t ask), and exited the van. Accompanied with a chosen band member and a flashlight, he wandered into the night to meet Ralph. As he is in the meeting with Ralph, a car full of people pull up in the dark of night. They see THE GHOST OF HANNAH MONTANA puking it’s guts out, and pull away from the stoplight with the speed of a Top Fuel Dragster !! Imagine the damage those people have suffered !! We headed off to the hotel and Ed recuperated and survived his incident. Next up, Brad. He started getting a congested, stuffy cold thing during the weekend. I will come back to this later……

After the California shows, the band  (Ed, Brad, Mandy and Michael) took off driving home to Dallas because we had a St. Patrick’s Day show at LOCHRANN'S in Frisco, TX.  Talk about road warriors !! They pushed it through, all the way to Texas and arrived to load in right in time for the Wednesday show at the pub.

Lochrann’s is a great pub here in the Dallas area. We usually play there a couple of times a year, but this was our first St. Paddy’s gig. The crowd was awesome and the mood was fantastic !! We had Josh King come back and guest with us. He and Mikey pulled off some great didge work and it’s always a pleasure to have him on stage with us. John and Michael both played to the audience very well, and got the crowd involved and pumped up. There are some AMAZING clips on YOUTUBE from this show. A big thank you to melanddale12 for posting one of the best videos we have ever seen !! Make sure to go over and check out the video from this show and all of our videos.

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We had the luck of the Irish and got to stay in Texas for another week when we played the SAN ANTONIO HIGHLAND GAMES. We have not played these games in two years, so it was great to be back. Everyone was so welcoming and good to us. We had so many say how much they missed us last year and that we really made the weekend better for them. We shared the stage with our friends in Clandestine and also with The Dram Beauties and Lonestar Stout. All great musicians and it really was nice to see everyone having such a good time. The weather was perfect and the whole weekend was ALMOST perfect. It was 80% perfect. Why 80% perfect, you ask ?? Because there are five members of Needfire and during the weekend, we were missing one member.  100% / 5 = 20%. Four x 20% = 80% !! As I mentioned before, Brad was getting sick in California. He continued to perfect his illness until it became Bronchial Pneumonia. YAY BRAD !! Doctors suggested strongly that he rest and being the wise men that we are, we decided playing bagpipes with bronchial pneumonia wasn’t the best idea. We trudged on with four members and we ACTUALLY PULLED IT OFF !! Things are kind of weird when you look around and you’re missing one guy. Brad is doing better now, and he will be back in the rotation soon. We had a great time in San Antonio and a nice thank you to all involved, especially Andy and Tori for “dealing” with us. You two are fantastic !!

We know this blog is long, and we have not been keeping  up with the stories, but we’ll be sure to do better in the future. The moral of the story is this: All it takes is one person to make a difference. If Megan hadn’t mentioned updating, we may have waited longer. When Brad was sick, Needfire wasn’t Needfire without him.

Get out there and be the one person that makes a difference. We are so grateful for our fans and so thankful that we are able to share our gift of talent with all of you.

WE LOVE YOU ALL !!!

Needfire

Hello Everyone !!

We hope all of you are having a great New Year and all is well. We had a wonderful holiday season and played some very fun shows over the last month.

Right after Christmas, we played Lochrann’s pub in Frisco. It was their 2nd Birthday Party, so it was a great event and there were lots of people. Lochrann’s is a great venue and they have a world class servers and staff. A HUGE thank you to everyone for all of their help. Dave and Deina had a slideshow of all of the great moments in Lochrann’s history, and they played that on a big screen before the show.

We started the show with Amazing Grace, to kind of stay in the spirit of the holidays. It was well received and then we kicked off the usual list of new songs and worked our way through the first 45 minute set.  The second set was really good and we hit our stride in that one and had a blast. The soundman even came up and played didge on “Maggie”. That was a good time. It was a really good gig and we love playing at Lochrann’s any chance we get. Incidentally, we will be at Lochrann’s on St. Patrick’s Day this year !! It’s a first for us, so make sure you come spend the day to enjoy the music and the great people of Lochrann’s !!

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Our next show was in Fort Lauderdale on January 8th. Ed, Mikey, Mandy and Brad drove down and picked John and I up at the airport. On that Friday when we came in, it was 75 degrees and BEAUTIFUL weather.  We played a Ceili type event at the hotel that night and we joined by some amazing artists. Big thanks to Celtic Mayhem and Albannach. You guys are great !!
Saturday morning, we were up bright and early. Too bad the sun wasn’t. Saturday was very cold and rainy. I believe it was the coldest it’s been in South Florida in 30 years. There were reports of snow in Tampa and Orlando. CRAZY !! Like the troopers we are……….we bitched and complained all the way to the gig !! (ha ha……just kidding !!) We got out early and set up for sound check. Mark and John were great soundmen, and allowed us to take the time to get it all just right. A big thank you to everyone for putting up with us and our mass of equipment. Sometimes, I envy these other players, as they walk in with ONE drum or ONE guitar. I KNEW I should have said “flute” when they asked what I wanted to play in the fifth grade band !!

The Saturday shows were great and we had a pretty good crowd, despite the weather. Our good friends, The Melendez family, came out to support us, and all of the staff and bands from the weekend were amazing to work with !! We shared the weekend with Albannach, Celtic Mayhem and a young lady that was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING !! She played fiddle and a small drum and sang in Portugese. I am terribly sorry I can’t remember her name, but if someone knows, please send us a message. She was incredible !!
A MONSTEROUS thank you again to Mark and John for everything they did for us. These guys are fun to work with and great people to top it off !! We had a great weekend and we hope to return to South Florida next year. Let’s just hope for better weather !!

Check out the videos of "9 Minutes of Woo" and "Maggie Oh Maggie" on Youtube from one of our fans . Great videos, but I soooo wish it came with Freeze O’ Vision, so you too could enjoy what we did !!

VIDEO 1 - 9 Minutes of Woo

VIDEO 2 - Maggie Oh Maggie

Matt

So, I’m casually walking through Lochrann’s Pub, waiting to go on stage when a man pulls me aside. He looks at me very seriously and says, “Matt, when are you going post another blog ?? I don’t have anything to do at work.”  Well, kind sir and fan of Needfire, here is your much deserved blog. Who am I to keep the working man from wasting company time ??

It has been WAY TOO LONG since I have shared tales of travel and band shenanigans (BANDNANIGANS !!) with our dear fans. We have had a very busy season and I think the overall consensus is that IT ROCKED !!

2009 started off with a great trip to Jacksonville, FL and the introduction of Needfire to our friends in the Sunshine State !! 2009 will culminate with a hometown show on December 26th at Lochrann’s Pub for their Second Anniversary !! There is not enough space or time to list all of our 2009 endeavors, but I would be happy to remind you all of the finer things that happened along the way………….

** John misses a flight from JAX to DFW because of a freak snowstorm in…….ATLANTA ?? **

** We broke new territory by playing in Florida AND California, within two weeks of each other, driving the whole way !! **

** Needfire drives 5,800 miles and 21 states in 12 days, covering all four time zones and still manages to play only nine shows !! **

**  We saw Mount Rushmore and posed for the obligatory photo. **

** Another great set of shows in Kansas. We did not expect the reaction we got. For the third time, Needfire is cited as the reason the festival breaks attendance records !! **

** Little Mikey Purser knocks on the wrong hotel room door at 1:30 am and causes Mr. Pointy Down The Hall Man to arise from his slumber. **

** THE GUINNESS SLEDDING CHAMPIONSHIP (see April 2009 blog post) **

** Brad’s “dispute” with the homeless population of Portland !! **

** The trials and tribulations of our friends and family on the road, and the other bands we tour with. The aforementioned people mostly get into trouble with us and force us to misbehave, but we love you guys !! **

** Seeing all of the amazing scenery and people throughout The United States, and realizing that we live in the greatest country in the entire world !! **

I am going to take the opportunity to share a little about my bandmates here. We have a great group of people here at Needfire. Some of us have worked together for many years in other projects, some of us are new to each other.

John – This guy is one of the hardest working people I know. He has given countless hours to Needfire, not only writing and recording, but also building equipment we need to make our show run smoothly. John will recall a conversation you had with him back in 1996, but he sometimes forgets the words to his own creations. He seems to never tire, but he will slow down for a cold “PollyPop” or a good conversation about The Beatles !!
He is learning how to play guitar by taking weekly lessons from Brad.

Ed – If Needfire had cheerleaders who worked 24/7/365, Ed would be their coach. He EXUDES what this band is all about. He will stay up for 24 hours straight to nail down a gig for us, then take a 2 minute nap, before he books the rest of our tour. If you mention cats, he melts. If you mention coffee, he starts to shake from excitement. If you mention cats who walk on their hind legs and deliver coffee to you, he would probably pass out from just the thought. Ed has started studying a new DVD series called, “Bass For Beginners”. We wish him all the best.

Brad – There is no one I have ever met, who is quite like Brad. He will give you the shirt off his back, then when you post it on Ebay for sale, he’ll snipe you just as the auction expires. Brad brings a special kind of feel to Needfire by being one of the best rock-n-roll pipers in the country. He can feel the groove in anything, and then write an impromptu pipe part for it. He runs on coffee and Blackberry juice. I don’t mean blackberry the fruit, I mean Blackberry the cell phone. If Brad could take a picture of a camera while that camera was taking a picture of him, taking a picture of a picture, he would. He enjoys sniffing freshly opened rolls of film wrapping.

Michael – Take a cup of strong black coffee, add a bunch of youthful energy, a great appreciation for music, a dry sense of humor and one of the greatest fiddle players around, and you get Lil’ Mikey Purser !! Michael brings a special little sumpin sumpin to the band that can’t be explained. This kid has some energy on stage too !! It’s a good thing I’m already sitting down during the show, cuz he makes me tired just watching him. If I would have had a little brother, from another mother…….well, you know. Michael really has been a great addition to Needfire. Just a side note, not many people know this, but Brad taught him how to play fiddle. I know !! I was surprised too !!

Matt – What can be said about Matt ?? Not much.

OK, enough with all of the mushy gushy crap about all these things and stuff and people. We are so thankful that we get to share our talents with all of our fans, family and friends. We have had five amazing years of Needfire, and we owe it all to you, the fans. When we first put this thing together, who knew that we would have this kind of success ?? I remember when we were getting prepped for our first show ever, the North Texas Irish Festival in 2005. We were nervous and scared that we weren’t ready, but going back and looking at the videotape, we did OK. We have kinda’ come full circle, back to this year’s North Texas Irish Festival in 2009. During our big Saturday night show, we got two standing ovations. I guess this seems possible and it is very flattering, but what makes it so cool is that one of those ovations was in the middle of our set !! What an honor to receive that kind of reception from our hometown crowd that gave us our first chance !!

We are ready for 2010 and hope that you are too !! We will be visiting Canada for the first time in July of 2010. We are opening the tour in Florida again, playing in Fort Lauderdale. Needfire will also be in Atlanta in July, and we are breaking new ground in Buffalo, NY in September. We are turning the corner on something HUGE this year, and we want all of you to be along for the ride !!

Looking back on all we have accomplished over the years, all I can say is, as so perfectly stated by The King Of Rock-N-Roll, Elvis Presley, is “Thank You. Thank You Very Much.”

Matt

Hey everybody !!

I know we have been gone from here for awhile.......BUT WE'RE BACK !!! We appreciate everyone sticking around and keeping up with us while we've been away. Like we have always said, we have the best fans in the world !!! We couldn’t do it without you !!

So as you can see from the title, we have been traveling a little. A little may be using the term loosely. A "lottle" is more like it !! Talk about site seeing !! We saw a ton of great stuff, met a lot of amazing people and stayed in some of the most out of the way motels you never knew existed. We all took tons of pictures too, so stay tuned for those. You can see some of them on our Facebook and MySpace pages or link over to our many friends and see some of our pics.

We headed out of Dallas on July 22nd, destined for Seattle, WA. OK, five minutes out of the gate and we're already stopping for gas, food and general wrong doing. The trip is great so far !!! We motored into Kansas the first night and stopped at what would be considered early for some of our stays. Most nights we weren't in bed before 3 a.m. The glamorous life of rock-n-roll !! The next day, we had wheels up at 7 a.m. and headed down the road. Next stop, Burley, ID......yes,Idaho. Nice hotel,stopped at 2:30 a.m., wheels up at 8:00 a.m. At this point, it's fair to say, everyone is still getting along and we have had no casualties as of yet. Two days down, ten to go.

Our next stop was........the Seattle Airport !! No, we weren't staying there. We had to pick John up. I have to say, I'm sure that none of us have had as much trouble getting to an airport gate as we did in Seattle. Ed was driving, so he had to do all of the hard work. After 20 minutes of driving around, we finally got in to where he was. YAY !!! We are complete now. All five members and two honorary members. Seven people in a six passenger van !!! Now we're having fun !!

After the airport, we drove down to Enumclaw,WA where the actual festival was. Nice place they put us up at, more than a hotel, less than a resort. By the way, a courtyard in the center of all the rooms is a good/bad thing. I'll cover that later. Anyway, nice to be in one place for awhile (i.e. - three days.) The festival was very nice. A good sized event with lots of vendors, good food and some of our best friends !! We shared the entertainment stage with our long time friends The Winked Tinkers, our personal source of constant entertainment Alex Beaton, our good friend Collin Grant Adams and  new friends for us, Molly's Revenge. All great performers and people we are happy to call friends. We also saw some Texas natives and got to spend time with the love of our lives, The Kilt Lasses from MacKinnon's !! Check them out at www.mackinnonskilts.com !!

Our shows went very well and we were happy to pick up some new fans along the way. Everyone involved with the festival was very gracious to us. Plus, we had an amazing view of Mt... Ranier every day that we drove into the games. We had fun hanging out with all of our old friends, and we shared some great stories between the lot of us. AND THE COURTYARD……apparently, some people do not enjoy a loud drunken jam at 11:30 at night, when they are trying to sleep !! PARTY POOPERS !! We played a little in the courtyard at the hotel and Hanna from The Kilt Lasses graced us with a song too !! She’s a talented young songwriter. Look out for her !! She may be in NeedFire before you know it !! Overall, it was very good to be at a new event and have such a good response.

Forgive me in advance for not covering all of the details, as this was a very long trip for us, and there were a ton of things to make mention of.

After we left Enumclaw, we headed up to Renton,WA where the Jimi Hendrix Memorial is. We are all BIG fans of Jimi’s music and it was very cool to be able to pay tribute to him in person. We headed down the road a little further that night and ended up staying in Montana. Where, I do not remember, but at this point everything started to look the same. Next day, we were headed toward Mt. Rushmore. We were all looking forward to seeing the monument and ready for a little break in the monotony. Mt. Rushmore always seemed like a cool sight, and it is even cooler in person. There is a ton of history and the guides are great at explaining it all. Make sure to see our own take on Rushmore in the pics section and on our main site !!

After we left the park, we headed to a little motel down the road, still in South Dakota (I think). I remember getting sleep, but not a lot of it. Like I mentioned before, there were many nights when we had very little. I guess we signed up for this !!

We had a few stops along the way, for some good coffee and a few moments that will go down in NeedFire history. Brad’s wife, Lauren, has some good quotes and some priceless moments written down in her notebook. If any of those are mine, I hereby proclaim my innocence. It wasn’t me. I promise. I will post another blog in the next couple of weeks, with some more highlights of this trip.

As we rolled through Minnesota and who knows which other of the 50 states, we stacked up the miles and checked off the hours. We stopped in Chicago (even went by Ed’s old house) and had dinner at Gino’s East in Rolling Meadows. If you are ever in the Chicago area, make sure you go by one of the Gino’s locations. They have AMAZING pizza and I had the BEST sausage and peppers I’ve ever eaten !! They have a cool thing where you can write your greetings on the walls. We all put our names up and Ed added NeedFire in a few strategic places !! YAY ED !!! We were stuffed full and decided to head down the road……….RIGHT INTO Downtown Chicago rush hour traffic !! Three hours and ten miles later, I’m ready to get out of the van. I decided against it because I was actually driving, otherwise I would have walked.

We moved on into Michigan and stopped at a great find of a motel, right by the airport runway. YAY !!! WE CAN SLEEP IN !! John came in around 11 a.m. on Friday (July 31st…..ten days after we left and no one has quit the band). After we picked him up, and stopped by Guitar Center and stopped for lunch, we finally made it to the festival.

Michigan has always been very good to us and we love playing at this event !! It is in Livonia, which is just up from Detroit The people are great and we always get to see some good friends and our dear fans !! We shared the stage with Tartanic again this year and we met a new band named The Kreellers. And we once again had the pleasure of gigging with Alex Beaton. All of the entertainment at this event was top notch. We really enjoyed sharing the weekend with them all. The shows went very well and we seemed to hit our stride on this set of shows. Maybe we were tired of being on the road. Maybe we felt at home. Or maybe........just maybe………...IT’S BECAUSE WE ROCK !!!!!!   

THANK YOU HALF OF AMERICA !!! WE LOVE YOU !!!

Matt

Lots of travel over the past week. This past weekend we performed in Enumclaw, Washington at the Pacific Northwest Scottish Highland Games. Great to see many familiar faces and finally meet our new Washington fans.

Traveling in the van now. Having fun on the road. Visited Mount Rushmore yesterday!

Performing at the St. Andrew's Society of Detroit Highland Games this weekend! Friday night July 31st and Saturday, August 1st. Visit www.highlandgames.com for more info.

Ed

On our way to perform at the Rock Springs International Festival in Wyoming on Saturday, July 11th.

The view driving through Colorado last night...

Ed