Do you like Traditional Scottish Music? Is so, you will enjoy tuning in to the wealth of news, views and reviews covered by the 'FOOT STOMPIN' CELTIC MUSIC website.

You can, if you wish, subscribe to their regular Newsletter which is received by e-mail. An extract from their 'March' Newletter is available below

March Newsletter 2005

1. New CDs at Foot Stompin' Celtic Music.
RELEASED ONLY THIS WEEK! Highland Games - Finlay MacDonald, Simon McKerrell & Chris Gibb: Some of the great pipe tunes of Scotland, played by some of the most talented pipers on the scene. Add to this the grace and skill of this band and you have Highland Games, the most fun piping album around. £12.59 (£13.99 for first time customers).

ANOTHER BRAND NEW ARRIVAL!: An Darna Umhail (The Second Glance) - Dòchas: Dòchas is a truly wonderful band which embraces Gaelic, Scots, Shetland and Irish musical heritage combined with excellent musicianship. Fun and exciting this 6 piece band features pipes fiddle, clarsach, bodhran & keyboards The CD was produced by Iain MacDonald. £12.59 (£13.99 for first time customers).

BRAND NEW COMPILATION: The stunning music on this album came about through a collaborative commemoration in 2003 of the emigration of around 800 Skye and Raasay people in June 1803. The emigrants were part of a scheme engineered by Lord Selkirk, and were bound for Prince Edward Island in Canada. A poem by one of the emigrants, Calum Buchanan, composed in Gaelic and still in current usage, provided the inspiration for many of the new compositions which you will hear. The musicians featured on An t-Eilean are Anne Martin, Blair Douglas, Emma Swinnerton, John Lamond, Neil Campbell, Eilidh Macleod, Angus MacKenzie, Roy Johnstone & Steve Sharratt. Price £11.69 (£13.99 for first time customers).

2. Discussion Forum:
Cheapening the music. There is an interesting article in this month's Living Tradition about the Irish trad music scene being flooded with lots of substandard CDs. This is because it's too easy and cheap to make CD nowadays which allows either players that are to young, players that are sub-standard or just decent players not puting enough effort into the final product.
Does anybody feel this is a problem in Scotland?

Friends supporting 'your' musical tastes. How do your friends, work colleagues etc regard or react to your love and interest in this "funny wierd music"(their words)? I'm actually referring to folk and traditional music in general but it could apply to any minority taste.

Instruments ban? I've just been to a session this afternoon (I'll not name it) and there was this terrible banjo player who ruined it. He was too loud, out of tune with his self and with the rest of the musicians! How do you tell someone like that to belt up?

3. CD Review
A Thousand Miles Away
It's hard to believe that Filska has slipped under the radar of the American public consciousness for so long. The Shetland Islands foursome had already compiled an impressive scrapbook of BBC appearances and prestigious festivals when this record was made, almost a decade after its 1994 inception. But given their youthful ages - Jenna Reid (fiddle/accordion/vocals) is only 23 - it all makes perfect sense. Between the three lasses and the one lad, the blue-ribbon fiddling, chord -outlining piano, gracefully gliding accordion stylings, anfd dead-on-rhythm guitar playing all roll up into breath-steakling arrangements (Coolie;s, Tom's Return) that are lighter than air. A couple of selections find guitarist Andrew Tulloch nimbly flat-picking in parallel with the accordion/fiddle-fueled melody lines. A few others are tender songs (A Thousand Miles Away, Sun Moon and Stars) albeit with a more contemporary pop-ish bent, but, like the instrumentals, they too stand as beautiful creatures. Overall a brilliant record.....DW Dirty Linen, The magazine of folk and world music.

4. Books
Ord's Bothy Songs and Ballads: This book was first published around 1930. Superintendent John Ord of the Glasgow Police Force was a friend of the renowned Folk Song collector Gavin Greig and like Greig did much to preserve the songs of his native North-East. Ord has recorded the traditional forms as sung in the farm bothies of north-east Scotland. A rare treat for lovers of Scottish music. This paperback edition also has an illustrated introduction by internationally renowned folklorist Sandy Fenton, himself a native of the north-east of Scotland. £10.35 (£11.50 for first time customers).

Plus lots more at www.footstompin.com