Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: nostalgic
  • Music: Kansas, "Closet Chronicles."

Everything leaves us, everything stays.

Sometimes 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.
Tags: filk, good things, music
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  • 17 comments

vulpine137

January 26 2017, 00:36:58 UTC 4 months ago

Oh, I never knew she passed. :( Yeah, they were fun. Their version of Matty Groves was hysterical.

brooksmoses

January 26 2017, 01:44:26 UTC 4 months ago

Oh, wonderful!

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.

_dante_sparda_

January 26 2017, 02:36:40 UTC 4 months ago

What lovely music. I have an inkling of how you were inspired just by hearing the preview snippets. I am belatedly sorry for your loss.

archangelbeth

January 26 2017, 05:00:40 UTC 4 months ago Edited:  January 27 2017, 06:34:10 UTC

*buys the album from iTunes without even sampling*

Edit: OMG! It's got the original for the "Black Flag" filk! I never knew where to get that! THANK YOU!

egoldberg

January 27 2017, 06:49:00 UTC 4 months ago Edited:  January 27 2017, 06:50:34 UTC

You want to know the funny thing? It's *exactly* that filk that led to this whole project.

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.

davidgoldfarb

January 26 2017, 05:25:37 UTC 4 months ago

Annwn! I first encountered them when they opened for the Flash Girls at a club in San Francisco. I remember the album release party for Come Away to the Hills at Starry Plough. Not gonna buy it now of course, because I long since ripped my CD. (Daoine Sidhe, not so much: probably will buy that one.)

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".

kshandra

January 26 2017, 05:52:10 UTC 4 months ago

Has it really been that long?

To absent friends, in memory yet bright.

galeni

January 26 2017, 07:31:49 UTC 4 months ago

Am I wrong to miss Heather Alexander? I had a bit of a crush on her that didn't survive his transition.

sylphon

January 26 2017, 15:26:12 UTC 4 months ago

I don't normally buy digital only albums, but "Come away to the hills" was delightful!

vincentursus

January 26 2017, 18:40:05 UTC 4 months ago

I had wondered where to find this.

Thank you.

egoldberg

January 27 2017, 06:26:15 UTC 4 months ago Edited:  January 27 2017, 06:41:10 UTC

Thank you so much, Seanan, for spreading the word. It is really touching to read the shared history of what Annwn and Leigh Ann's music meant to all of us -- especially for someone like myself who never knew Leigh Ann, and who never even met Elton.

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).

brooksmoses

January 27 2017, 23:00:56 UTC 4 months ago

Yay, thank you so much for making these available! What's the best way to get notified when new things are up?

egoldberg

January 28 2017, 04:37:11 UTC 4 months ago

Unfortunately, there isn't a mailing list (the Elf Hill e-mail list all got erased).

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.

egoldberg

January 27 2017, 06:34:06 UTC 4 months ago

P.S. In an excess of caution, I should add that all of Annwn's music *is* actually freely available for download here: http://motogrrl.org/Bands/

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.

patoadam

January 28 2017, 02:03:50 UTC 4 months ago

Leigh Ann, with her enthusiasm, energy, and talent, was an inspiration.

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.

lylassandra

January 28 2017, 03:14:30 UTC 4 months ago

Oooh, you like Four Shillings Short? My husband and I are big fans, especially since Aodh Og is always willing to sing extra numbers in Gaelic whenever my husband's at the show...

I'll have to check Annwn out!

damerell

January 29 2017, 20:41:18 UTC 4 months ago

I was a bit confused because Wave Gotik Treffen just announced Annwn, but it turns out to be a different one - founded 2006, coincidentally.