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Happy Birthday to Us Music Friday ~ Part One

Jane Woods — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:54:00 +0000

This weekend marks our 2nd birthday. Time sure flies when you’re having fun. I read over the post we did last year for our first birthday. At that time the site counter told us we had had about 62,000 hits. This year is it approaching 130,000.

In the interim, though, I discovered the stats from our server logs which shows that this counter misses way more people than it counts and the true number is well over 500,000. That’s not a huge number in web terms but it’s enough to boggle my mind. It proves that there are way more people interested in Celtic, Irish or Indie music than we first realized when we began. And the numbers are growing every day! Many of the people who began this journey with us have moved on but there is still a small handful of us determined to bring you the best the genre has to offer as well as giving exposure to a lot of promising new people just starting out.

We now have over 500 registered users here at the site but our Facebook page and twitter followers could use a little boost. Please “like” us on Facebook here – http://www.facebook.com/fanrealm and/or follow us on twitter here – http://twitter.com/#!/Fanrealm to be sure you don’t miss any of our posts and to give us a warm fuzzy feeling.

In our next year, we will be accepting advertising and sponsors, as well as setting up a merch shop. Money raised will help pay the annual webspace rent (which comes due on St Pat’s, ironically enough) and we also want to attend some festivals this year so we can showcase both them and the acts they feature. All this takes funding so we hope to raise some capital this way. We will also be changing the like buttons on our posts since so many people seem to miss the ones at the end of the posts.

But for now, the first order of business is to party and celebrate our birthday starting today and all next week up to and including next Music Friday. We will be rocking out for our birthday with some old friends and some new ones. Raise a glass to year three and enjoy!

Paddy Nash & The Happy Enchiladas

The Saw Doctors

Fighting for Jane

The Kreellers

Icewagon FLU

Sweet Jane

KARNATAKA

Kilmaine Saints

SIR REG (For some reason I had to fiddle with the first one to get it to play – if you have trouble hit pause then play again and it should work. Song is will worth the extra effort )

More Next Week ~ Party On!

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Videos and Updates

Jane Woods — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:46:48 +0000

Over the next couple of days we will be having the entire multistory steel and glass Fanrealm corporate headquarters rewired for DSL so we may have some downtime here during the switch. It won’t affect the website in any way just my access to it. To keep you informed and entertained here are some updates and videos from some of our favorite performers.

The Lowly Knights have just released their 3rd EP, The Even Keel. For more info go here Click on the EP cover for samples and purchase info.

The Kilmaine Saints are on their way to becoming one of the all time best sellers at cdbaby. Their cd The Good, The Plaid & the Ugly is celt rock at its finest. See review here. You MUST have your own copy. Click on the link below to get yours.

Ghost Trains and Oracle are both working on new songs.

Andrew Huggan is working his first EP will the aid of Andrew Gordon and Paul Eastham of Coast

Speaking of Coast, they have been busy also and have redonre their great song Oceanos Watch this video to see the new version ~

Here is a video of the latest performances of Chris Keys, a talented songwriter from Belfast. He is doing his song City Lights on Bandwagon TV. I will include related videos so you can see more of his great work.

Here is a treat from everyone’s favorites – The Saw Doctors doing Exhilarating Sadness – Live In Galway I will also include related videos here so have yourself a private little Saw Doctors concert. Enjoy!

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

November Festivals

Jane Woods — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:17:48 +0000

First of all, we want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes especially 67 Music, Slainte Steve and Oracle. We especially want to thank Gaelic Storm for the return link. It was a great birthday present Everyone looked simply stunning in their silly hats at the virtual birthday party. Many a pint was lifted (virtual and otherwise) and a great time was had by all. Now on to Year Two!

The 2010 festival season is almost behind us. The 2011 one is being planned and I will start posting the ones for the new season shortly. There are still a few festivals left on the 2010 docket so if you are in any of these areas be sure to check these festivals out. Festivals are a great way to support your local Celtic community, meet old friends and make new ones, to say nothing of enjoying some really fabulous music. I can’t recommend them enough.

Coastal Celtic ~ Music Festival of Yachats Nov 12 & 13 Yachats Commons, Yachats OR Musical guests include Colleen Raney, Elizabeth Nicholson & Bob Soper, The Hanz Araki Band, Kevin Burke & Cal Scott, The Casey Neill Trio, Crumac and more. Check their website for details http://www.coastalceltic.com/

Maryland Irish Festival Nov 12-14 Timonium MD Musical Guests include Screaming Orphans, The Young Dubliners, Derek Warfield and the Young Wolf Tones, Barleyjuice and many more. Check their website at http://www.irishfestival.com

Orlando Irish Fest at Baldwin Park, Nov 20 Orlando Fla Musical guests include Blaggards, The Young Dubliners. I heard about this festival from both these bands but can’t find anything on line about it. If you are in Orlando consult your local paper. They may have an ad or event listing with more info. These are both great bands and you don’t want to miss them.

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

Happy Birthday to Us!

Jane Woods — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:04:44 +0000

Don’t worry we won’t sing. We’ve posted some widgets that belong to people who can sing and they do it quite well. This has been an amazing year. We started out with a simple idea – to have a place to collect the great music we either have loved for ages or discover on myspace, ReverbNation and other such sites. We were very pleasantly surprised when other people turned out to enjoy them as well. We have over 62,000 hits now which tells us a lot of other people like our little niche of the music world, as well.

Some of the people who began the journey with us have moved onto other things but we have a core group of writers who are very dedicated to finding and posting info about Celtic, Irish and Indie music, the people who play it and the people who enjoy it. I think there are a lot of people who love this genre, many who have yet to find us but for those who already have this is your party too. To celebrate we are posting the ReverbNation widgets for many of the bands who have made this year the success it was and also as a representation of the types of music we love. There are a few we would like to have added who do not have ReverbNation widgets. We have already badgered two of these bands into getting them and if you don’t have one – you could be next.

So sit back, grab some virtual stout (or a real one from your own fridge) and party with us till the cows come home. Silly hats are optional but you know you would look truly awesome in one so go ahead a wear one. We won’t tell. A wise Blaggard told me that all birthday celebrations were to start on Friday and last for a week. Sounds good to me. To year two!

Oracle

Blaggards

The Banshee

The Druids

Mickey Coleman

The Rogues

Gareth Brannigan

Siobhan Day

Ghost Trains

Paddy Nash & the Happy Enchiladas

The Saw Doctors

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

This and That

Jane Woods — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:17:11 +0000

We have added a like button to the bottom of each post, similar to the ones at Facebook. If you enjoy a post please click the thumbs up at the end. This helps tell us what people like so we can use this info to decide what we cover.

We now have the ability to change backgrounds so I will most definitely be playing more with that.

Music News

The Saw Doctors have been selling out concerts showcasing their new album. Here is a link to a press conference announcing the concerts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeqTPikB2Zk

Celtic Thunder performed at the International Rotary Club in Montreal on Sunday. If their fans would like to catch a glimpse of their performance in the opening ceremonies they can check out this video They sing at the very end of the video. This is just a clip not their complete performance. They sang for two sessions, playing for about 15,000 convention attendees each time. They did the show they are planning to tour in the fall at the aptly named Thunder Bay, in Ontario, last night.

Marc Gunn to play three upcoming conventions. I first heard Marc at a con and he really shines in that atmosphere. If you are attending any of these, be sure you find Marc and listen to his show. It will make the con!

07/03/10 – InConjunction – Indianapolis, Indiana
08/06/10 – GenCon Indianapolis – Indianapolis, Indiana
09/03/10 - DragonCon – Atlanta, Georgia

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

Here We Go Again

Jane Woods — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:25:03 +0000

The photo glitches were a bigger problem than we originally thought. The mechanism in the program that made the thumbnails proved to be incompatible with our server and crashed the site so we have switched to another theme. I really liked the old one but this is a really nice one too and we will be customizing it for the next few days. The categories are now along the top as they used to be. To read the entire post just click on the title of it. All other navigation is in the columns at the right. Some are repeated but we will get that sorted very soon. We have a few other links to add also so please bear with us for a few days. Once we get all this tamed we will go back to finding you more great music.

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

Photo Glitches

Jane Woods — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:00:38 +0000

We are having a little problem with our images or more specifically with the cropper that makes the thumbnails so there will be broken images for thumbnails till we get it fixed. We are working on it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

New Look for Fanrealm

Jane Woods — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:40:11 +0000

June is the start of our 8th month on line and during that time we have grown a lot, thanks to the readers, contributors and all the bands and singers who have worked with us. We have just passed 36,000 visitors and to celebrate our growth we will be changing format over the weekend. We will be going from a blog style format to a news magazine format. That will, hopefully, make the posts a bit easier to read. Navigating the site will be a bit different, as well. In the new format, the newest post won’t always be the one on top but it will be at the top of the list of recent posts in the right column.

The new format will feature most prominently our most popular categories and the posts in those categories. The categories we feature on this page will change as the popularity of the categories change. For example, a lot of people are interested in festivals at this time of year so that will be a featured category now but when the summer is over a different category may replace it on the front page. All categories will be accessible via the category list that will appear in the lower left hand corner of the front page.

Most of our readers seem to find us via a search engine which lands them on a specific post and the posts will have a much cleaner look in the new format. We are excited about the change. It will allow us to feature content on the front page for a longer period of time and make the really popular content easier to find.

This change should be a lot less time consuming than moving the site to the new server but should things not work exactly as you expect them to (some of the links may have to be redone after the format change) try and bear with us till we get everything tweeked. We should be completely back in business by Monday, barring any mischief by the cybergremlins.

Thanks again to everyone who has made this so much fun.

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

Third Time is a Charm

Jane Woods — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:55:07 +0000

Okay after many trials and tribulations and way more downtime than we expected, we are finally all moved and things work again. A few little ascii codes sneaked into some of the posts while they were swirling around in cyberspace but I will take them out. Once we get all those cobwebs swept aside we will get back to the business of finding you more great music. We will be doing some cosmetic things now that we have moved but the major haul is done for now.

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!

Still in the process of moving

Jane Woods — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:10:05 +0000

Just wanted to give you all an update on the move. We are getting the site set up on the new server but still have a few picky things to add and adjust. The current plan it to move it one evening early in the week so there will be some downtime in the next few days. If you get page not found error don’t panic we will be back within a few hours.

If you found this post by way of a search engine, please click on the word HOME in the upper left hand corner to visit the rest of the site. Welcome to Fanrealm!