CapnJake

Well, I sure wish I could say that I'll see a bunch of you tomorrow!

Gosh, folks, the lack of response or interest is very discouraging.

Hester, thank you for sharing this fascinating piece.

I'm working on learning the concertina with tips from my folk singer pal David HB Drake. I discovered that my normally shy cat LOVES the playing and rubs up against me or the concertina and sings along. "Mee-yooo!" Sure beats when I was dog-sitting for a friend and her lovey-dovey black lab barked and bayed at the concertina!

Chicago Maritime Festival — Saturday, February 24, 2007 Bounding Main will be one of the featured performing groups at the 2007 Chicago Maritime Festival. Host to many popular international artists, the CMF has become the Midwest USA's premier venue for nautical music. The other, excellent performers appearing this year will be Jerry Bryant, Johnny Collins, the Philippe Duo, and hosts Tom & Chris Kastle. For those interested in both historical and contemporary maritime and Great Lakes topics, there are many information-rich seminars during the day to enjoy. We'll even be doing a workshop on - you guessed it - pirates! Come experience Bounding Main at the Chicago Maritime Festival.

Chicago Maritime Festival — Saturday, February 24, 2007 Bounding Main will be one of the featured performing groups at the 2007 Chicago Maritime Festival. Host to many popular international artists, the CMF has become the Midwest USA's premier venue for nautical music. The other, excellent performers appearing this year will be Jerry Bryant, Johnny Collins, the Philippe Duo, and hosts Tom & Chris Kastle. For those interested in both historical and contemporary maritime and Great Lakes topics, there are many information-rich seminars during the day to enjoy. We'll even be doing a workshop on - you guessed it - pirates! Come experience Bounding Main at the Chicago Maritime Festival.

Is there any kind of a web site where we can see more details on this event?

What a fantastic adventure! I would SO love to be a part of that, but with limited free days and gigs already booked I'm afraid 2007 is out for me.

Bounding Main will be performing for the opening and we're looking forward to seeing all of our pirate friends there!

Brian, that sounds fantastic! Please keep us up to date on your progress and if you need volunteers or information I'm sure this group on the Pyracy Pub is a valuable resource.

Sturgeon Bay sure is the one! The other two facilities are tiny by comparison, but are also very nice. I should also mention that there is a large antique "mall" on the way into town (from the South, that is) that had a full sized, real ship's anchor out front for sale, plus inside several ship's wheels, ship models, etc. This was a couple of years back, but there are a lot of these places around and they always seem to have wonderful maritime collectibles available.

At this point I don't know too much more about the exhibit specifics. I invited the museum's executive director to join us on this board to answer your questions, but Brian is a phenominally busy guy, running a not-for-profit museum in these times of government penny-pinching, so we may not hear much from him. I do know, from talking to him in Green Bay at the Tall Ships Festival that they were able to secure materials recovered from shipwrecks that Mike Breza of the Oshkosh Public Museum couldn't get his hands on for his Pirate Exhibit this year. The Door County Maritime museum has been a huge supporter of Bounding Main. They are great people with an excellent museum, part of a really nice community of folks that appreciate their maritime history. Even if you can't make it for the Pirate Exhibit, I highly recommend visiting any time of the year and spending time in Door County while you're at it.

I highly recommend The Barbican in Sturgeon Bay. If you Google it you'll find their web site with rates and reservation information. It is not too far from the Museum, coincidentally.

Speaking of "Northwest Passage" by the late Stan Rogers. It seems we're not particularly well known on this board, and I should make some effort to raise our flag. Bounding Main has been performing together since January of 2003. We've been singing maritime music at many venues in the Midwest US and have a quickly filling-up schedule for 2007. We have a version of "Northwest Passage" that seems to be well liked, based on our CD and digital sales on CD Baby. You can hear it played on our MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/boundingmain. Please also visit our "real" web site at Bounding Main Web Site. If you click through the images of our two CDs you can listen to previews of all of the songs there. We're working on our third, as yet unnamed, CD now. We'll be recording live at the Chicago Maritime Festival in February. I hope you can join us. Fair winds and following seas,

Door County Maritime Museum We'll be there!

As ever, the perspective is limited, but here is our photo gallery from the St. Louis Pirate Festival: http://bounding.wohlershome.net/gallery/album27

As of this writing, our ensemble cast will all be returning in 2007: Heroic Pirates Tom Charney as Captain Joe Cotton David Gregory as Rum Davey Kimberly Chavez as Scuttle Sally Dastardly Military Rick Cleveringa as General Lester Orchitis Richard Gilbert as Lieutenant Keloid Chris Last as Capt. Freddie Hauptmann We will have an additional two castmembers performing principal fights and I will be casting for the role of Governor Washington. Dean Calin Port Washington Pirate Festival So then what exactly would you like from our crew? How might we be of the best service to you and your event? Thank you very much for your kind offer. I will have more on this for all of you when we have our brainstorming session for this year's show. I'll keep in mind that we have your excellent resources available. Dean Calin Port Washington Pirate Festival

As of this writing, our ensemble cast will all be returning in 2007: Heroic Pirates Tom Charney as Captain Joe Cotton David Gregory as Rum Davey Kimberly Chavez as Scuttle Sally Dastardly Military Rick Cleveringa as General Lester Orchitis Richard Gilbert as Lieutenant Keloid Chris Last as Capt. Freddie Hauptmann We will have an additional two castmembers performing principal fights and I will be casting for the role of Governor Washington. Dean Calin Port Washington Pirate Festival

It's not all-inclusive, but Bounding Main's pictures from the 2006 event can be found here: http://bounding.wohlershome.net/gallery/album05 and the 2005 event here: http://bounding.wohlershome.net/gallery/Po...Pirate-Festival Dean Calin Port Washington Pirate Festival

My goal of having a gallows with Capt. Cotton being fitted with a noose and then rescued was nixed by the producer of the show for the 2006 event. I was able to have Capt. Orchitis threaten it, but we could not show it. "he who pays the piper calls the tune," and the tune did not include a hanging. Sorry, mates. Dean Calin Port Washington Pirate Festival www.portpiratefestival.com

CaptainJake, If I may, I've worked serveral events (fund raisers and such) and have done my share of ren faire dinners and dinner theater in the past. With the pyrates being one of the main elements of this event, why not consider the following: Dinner with a handful of pyrates? People truly enjoyed interaction with 'characters'. It gives them a chance to ask questions and walk away from the event with a happy memory. Something to consider...just an idea... Lilly McKinney aka Cheeky Actress Archangel Crewe Dinner with a handful of pyrates? Lilly, this is a great idea - and one on which we're already working. The town restaurants were just insane with joy that they had so much business all weekend they had to turn people away. It was our thought that we would have "dinner with the pyrates" and have "tall tale" contests during the meal for color and excitement. We would LOVE to have more groups and more individuals participate with us for this event. We were able to do a lot with the small committee that we had, but we could do so much for the festival and the town of Port Washington by getting really organized on a reenactor level and making this event shine. It has been so great seeing the wonderful ideas and enthusiasm for this event, and I can tell you that seven months is a short time to get a lot done in preparation. Please know that we'll call on you to find out your level of involvement and your intentions for activities. Thank you all so much. Dean Calin Port Washington Pirate Festival

There was a Pirate Cruise, Lady B, but it went out before the Pirate Invasion, and its return was when the Windy II returned fire with its cannons - it was designed to get the audience involved in the scenario. Shame on us for not getting the word out better, and probably not the best time to have the ONLY Pirate Cruise, in retrospect. I'll talk to Kim about having a "Pirate-Only" cruise scheduled, perhaps Friday Night, as Saturday night is the Dinner Cruise, where we'll get more attendance from guests. Otherwise it is a great idea! Dean Calin Entertainment Director Port Washington Pirate Festival 2007 www.portpiratefestival.com

Yes, the site is a bit plain now, but will be updated with all of the good information and news for 2007. For shame, Lady, the Windy II is not a schooner, but a briganteen. :) And the fact is, of the tall ships that are in reasonable distance, most of them are schooners (Denis Sullivan, Red Witch, Friends Good Will, Windy) and the Windy II, for the fees one must pay for engaging such a vessel, gives us the most bang for our doubloon. That said, we've not set anything in stone, ship-wise, so we'll see what we see and will announce it on the web site. You said, "Especially something for us pirates to enjoy instead of watching the ship sail in and out wishing we were on it." I'm not sure what you're saying here, my friend. Are you wanting deck tours, a show on the ship, photo opportunities? Whichever ship we bring in will be engaged in regular cruises because they go a long way to paying for the event. Remember that unlike most events of this kind, admission is free, and has to pay for itself through the vendor fees, cruises and other special events. Speaking of special events, the very well received Pirate Invasion will become a two-day scenario in 2007. The response was so overwhelming this year that we'll be adding a second half to the story in addition to the parade through town on Sunday. And I want to publicly say that the Fools' Gold crew did the most remarkable job at the show this year. The producer was dumbfounded that you GAVE away the pirate certificates the the HUNDREDS of junior pirates that came to the show. You were all brilliantly in character, mixed wonderfully with the visitors and the other reenactors and were of great assistance in the Pirate Invasion. I wish we could have six more groups just like yours in 2007! Yours in "Aaarh!" Dean Calin Entertainment Director Port Washington Pirate Festival 2007 www.portpiratefestival.com

Hi friends, my name is Dean Calin, one of the singers with Bounding Main. We have released two CDs and are working on our third. I've been performing sea shanties since 1995 and am personal friends with many of the Big Name Performers in this genre. I love the traditional stuff and think that it is Important Music, both for our culture and history. That said, Bounding Main delivers traditional sea shanties and maritime music with arrangements for the modern ear. There are people out there like Tom Lewis and David HB Drake and Lee Murdock doing the songs the traditional way and doing them well. It was our choice to perform in Elizabethan mariner costumes (if you want to call us "pirates," okee-dokee) and to write and perform harmonic and theatrical arrangments. That is where I am coming from on this discussion. Some of the traditional performers are kvetching like mad about this CD: "Johnnie Depp is going to make tons of money with mainstream artists who don't even know what this music is about, when (this traditional artist) and (another traditional artist) have been out on the ships and the cold, getting wet and bringing the history to the people!" My take is that if Mssrs. Depp, Verbinski, et. al. can bring maritime music to the mainstream, it will only benefit ALL of us! A side note: I actually hold myself responsible for this album. When the film crew was down in the Carribbean filming PotC2 I was able to get a copy of our first CD, "Maiden Voyage" down to them. I thought our song "Derelict" would be perfect for the film, as it is the quintessential pirate tune ("Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum . . ."). I never heard back from them, but the movie started off with the character, Gibbs, drinking from his flask and singing NOT the Xavier Atencio and George S. Brun "A Pirates Life for Me" but "Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum . . ." So, the song, sort of made it into the film. And contemporary interpretations of sea shanties became an album produced by the crew that made the movie. Coincidence? You decide.