Happy Christmas from Reviewer Richard Banks and SixMileBridge

Ornaments: Christmas music from SixMileBridge. Richard says, "I am intrigued by the idea of Celtic rock," and "Maggie Drennon's strong vocal performances make SixMileBridge a band to hear." Visit Richard Banks at christmasreviews.com and read the entire review.

Celtic Music Reviewer Ray Dorsey Discovers No Reason

SixMileBridge have 3 releases available, and based on this one, are one of the best Celtic rock bands I've discovered in quite some time. This band just flat-out knows how to play. They incorporate the usual fare of pipes, guitar, bass, drums, whistles, mondolin, fiddle, etc., but do it with such verve and fire that it's instantly original. A capstone on the proceedings are the definitive vocals of Maggie Drennon, who has just a wonderful voice. Add to that a nice array of material, from trad pieces like "Easy & Slow" to "Is Fad' O Bhaile D'Aithneoinn" (w/music by Drennon) to a Bob Dylan cover and you have a first class release. Buy! http://www.loosegoose.com

See reviews of other Celtic Artists by Ray Dorsey here.

"Anders Johannson...easily earns his place amongst the guitar gods." "Maggie Drennon adds her dreamy...vocals." "Sean Cunningham plays some amazing bagpipes...that require a good set of lungs." All comments from Keith Hannaleck of MuzikMan Productions. Click here to read it all!

"Anders Johansson...formed the musical backbone." "Drennon just belted out the lyrics with the red-hot passion of a Celtic Janis Joplin." Brendan Foreman of Greeen Man Review says this and much more while reviewing SixMileBridge at Fado in Cleveland. Please read the entire review.

"Drennon is the primal force driving this band." Jayme Blaschke comes back for more and reviews No Reason for Green Man Review . More on Maggie: "crisp, lush vocals." On hearing the very first track, Maids of Mitchellstown/Silver Spear Jayme proclaims "It actually demands that you pay attention to it." Enjoy the entire review at the Green Man Review web site.

She Gets Her Licks In

Maggie "left skid marks on my speakers." Jayme Blaschke listens to Unabridged. "SixMileBridge excels at...living, moving sound." "'Ode to Joy' on bagpipes is an experience you won't soon forget." See his complete review for Green Man Review by clicking here.

Tom Knapp reviews No Reason for Rambles, A Cultural Arts Magazine. Tom says that No Reason has "...rock roots without ever overwhelming the traditional sound of the tune." He describes Maggie as having "...an excellent vocal style, strong and sensual." And No Reason as "...an album worth putting some new wear and tear on your speakers." Read the whole review at this link.

"Rebel bands seem to be very popular in the US and this band are no exception." Irish Bands Live UK reviewer Jack Hamlet describing No Reason. He calls No Reason, "a well produced album that rocks with its excellent beats and superb compositions." No Reason is a "must have for any serious Irish music lover." Maggie Drennon "has a fabulous voice." To read the entire review, click here.

Green Man Review contributer Jayme Blaschke, recently reviewed Across the Water. Maggie Drennon turns in "excellent, gusty performances," and Across the Water is "a groove chock full of attitude." To read the entire review, follow this link.

"...risk it. I'm glad I did. The show was phenomenal." The reaction of Jason Sprague to his first SixMileBridge performance--read the rest here.

If you live within 50 miles of Washington, DC, I highly recommend seeing SixMileBridge at Flanagan's (301-986-1007) in Bethesda, Maryland. Tonight is their last night in the Washington area. SixMileBridge is a Celtic group originally from Houston, Texas. They perform with tremendous energy, passion and musical talent. Maggie Drennon's vocals are especially enthralling, and she plays a mean fiddle and base guitar, too. When you see SixMileBridge you get great vocals, brilliant music, and musicians who make no bones about loving what they do. SixMileBridge performs what would best be described as Celtic-rock, with a heavy traditional emphasis. But there's nothing traditional about SixMileBridge--they put a great deal of creativity and flair into their music.

While many of their songs are contemporary-Celtic, there's considerable range in their music. Some slow songs, like Wild Mountain, from their latest CD, No Reason, have a traditional flavor. Others, such as "It Was 'a For Our Rightfu' King," from the Across the Water CD, display their traditional origins, but have a strong pop-rock element. While it's hard to think the fiddle, mandolin, and tin whistle as "rock" instruments, you should see what SixMileBridge can do with them (along with guitar, drums, pipes--more than a dozen different instruments in all.)

SixMileBridge sings about love, war, and magic. "The Witch of the Westmerelands" (Across the Water CD) almost makes you feel as if you're in Ireland in medieval times.

Last night's performance at Flanagan's was a four-star show. I had to leave before the last set--due to a babysitter's time limit--but there's no question I would have stayed until 12:30am if I could have.

SixMileBridge plays regularly in New York and other venues. Check their calendar for specific dates.

Bill Adler
Thursday, October 21, 1999

"...So here I sit, having come full circle I think. It's still not the Muse, and I still listen to those CD's and remember the good old days, but The Bridge is good. All by itself. So if the opinion of one cyber-yutz means anything to you guys allow me to say good going and might I wish you all the best of luck. And if the day (or night as the case may be) comes that I get to see your show again I'll be there, still sitting in the back, cuz that's how I am, but enjoying the show none-the-less."

D'arc Angel
Long time Ceili's Muse fan
Tuesday, March 30, 1999

"...if you are going to win over a crowd, you have to do more than look pretty and play good music... you have to seem REAL! SixMileBridge is more than just great music. Each member of the band has a way of drawing the audience in. The passion and enjoyment of every breath, each strum of the guitar, every draw of the bow, and beat of the drum is seen on the faces of the band and cherished by anyone fortunate enough to be in the same room with them. As a theatrical actor (and now director), I have learned that to have great stage presence, to really sell it to an audience, a performer must believe everything that they are doing onstage. SixMileBridge believes. And so do I!...that second show at NTIF was one of the best I've seen in awhile."

Preston Murchison
North Texas Irish Festival
Sunday, March 7, 1999

"Wolf has the Celtic drum kit ***nailed!!*** I can sit and just listen to that all night, but I'm prejudiced that way. All the vocals and harmonies are great and Anders is a f'in VIRTUOSO on guitar--no friggin' qualifications on that score. All the bass work is very tasty and overall stage presence is about a thousand percent better than you'll get off an evening with Paddy Keenan...Actually, I've been to two Paddy Keenan concerts in about 6 months and couldn't hear a damn thing--either feedback and EQ/mix problems, or drowned in a sea of the damned accordian. All I could think of was, Geeze, if they had SixMileBridge's Sound engineer and gear, then I could actually hear what the hell he was doing up there...They are extremely tuned and mixed and arranged, and the truth is everyone trades off instruments every five minutes so you'll just have to try to keep track onstage as they go."

Royce Lerwick
From the rec.music.celtic Newsgroup
Friday, March 5, 1999

"Head over to The Dubliner...to feast your ears on the Celtic strains of SixMileBridge. The members of the Houston-based quartet (sic) play 20 instruments between them, from bouzouki to bagpipes, as they blend traditional Irish and Scottish ballads and reels with Celtic-based rock and roll."

Gemma Tarlach
(from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, February 26, 1999)

Maggie's New Muse...
SixMileBridge from Past to Future
By Seth Hurwitz
(from the Houston Press, July 8, 1998)

It's been a long seven weeks for SixMileBridge, touring the Midwest and the East Coast to promote their debut CD, Across the Water. They've survived everything from torrential flooding to altitude sickness. But over the phone from a Richmond, Virginia, hotel room, singer Maggie Drennon sounds surprisingly relaxed and upbeat.

"If you're doing it right, the band is like a family," Drennon says. "After living in a car for seven weeks, you know everything about each other. We care intensely about each other, and we have a lot of fun."

It probably doesn't hurt the family dynamic that SixMileBridge guitarist Anders Johansson is also Drennon's husband. Johansson was also an integral part of her previous "family," Ceili's Muse, a band still so cherished in local folkie cliques that in '98 it received yet another Press Music Awards nomination -- almost a year after its demise. With its obsessive fan base and high-energy live show, Ceili's Muse was arguably Houston's most successful Celtic outfit of the past decade.

Drennon already had ten years of classical training in piano, flute and violin by the time she met Ceili's Muse co-founder Mary Maddux in the late '80s, and it was with her that Drennon took up singing seriously. Maddux also exposed her to Celtic music. Not coincidentally, it was at about that time Drennon began her "obsession with Ireland," something she now likens to a disease. Intrigued by her own Irish descent, she began making frequent trips to the Emerald Isle armed with a portable tape recorder, hiding out in a town called SixMileBridge in County Clare.

Such cultural-preservation tactics were the inspiration behind the Muse, which by 1990 was performing regularly around town, most notably at McGonigel's Mucky Duck. In late 1991, the group released the first of a handful of recordings, One Voice. Buoyed by the close-knit harmonies of Drennon and Maddux and the inspired playing of a rotating cast of band members, the Muse spent the early '90s broadening its repertoire beyond the strictly traditional. But by 1995, the band had begun unraveling. Maddux moved back to Massachusetts, leaving Drennon to soldier on as the lone frontwoman.

"Ceili's Muse was falling apart," Drennon admits now. "[Ending the band] was the most painful decision of my life."

But, in crisis, Drennon managed to find opportunity: "What's supposed to happen is that you move on to something better. To let go, I had to have faith, and my prayers were answered."

Wowed by bouzouki and mandolin player Frances Newton at a Wednesday-night Celtic session at the Mucky Duck, Drennon recruited the blond 20-year-old for her new project with Johansson, SixMileBridge. Newton came to the band from a contra-dance band (based not in the Nicaraguan resistance movement but in an early form of American square dance), and Drennon credits her love of traditional music for keeping the band bound to its roots: "She's the band's trad police; she won't let us get too far into rock."

Austin drummer Wolf Loescher filled out the new band, which Drennon freely admits is a concerted attempt to cross into more mainstream territory. "It was a conscious decision to become [more of] a rock band," she says. "[SixMileBridge] can play to larger audiences, in larger clubs and still play traditional Irish festivals."

Even so, some Celtic music devotees throughout the country have had a hard time adjusting to the band's more contemporary direction, coupled with its Texas origins. One irate New York fan even approached Johansson during a set and told him to "Fuck off," apparently because he's Swedish. Drennon countered by promising him a pint on the band if he could translate the Gaelic she was singing.

"Some people think it's completely retarded -- a Scottish/Irish band from Texas," Drennon confesses.

Not helping matters any is Across the Water, which covers a wide range of styles, from contemporary rock with a decidedly European feel to straight-up Celtic folk ditties played on mandolin, bodhrán, bouzouki and pipes. On tracks like "Missing You," Drennon's wrenching soprano plays counterpoint to Johannson's guitar pyrotechnics and Loescher's powerful drumming. (The band's recent appearance at a Leesburg, Virginia, folk festival marked the first time in 18 years that a full drum kit had been used on the event's stage.) Across the Water also includes several lovely Frances Newton originals with a distinctly old-country feel. Granted, it ain't the Cranberries, but the group's modern-day reach is nonetheless impressive.

"It's a question of balance," Drennon says.

As for the future, SixMileBridge has already begun work on Across the Water's follow-up, its release slated for fall on Drennon's own Loose Goose label. And since Johansson is engineering the CD at his own Houston Audio Labs, the band has the luxury of recording at its own pace. Drennon also plans to publish a Loose Goose catalog. The project began as a way to "advertise the CDs of my friends," Drennon says. "But people [have] crawled out of the woodwork to get it." (Already, Loose Goose boasts a mailing list of more than 2,000 names.)

Drennon is equally impressed by the commitment she's seen from other members of SixMileBridge. "[I feel] incredibly honored to be in a band with this mix of people," she says. "It's really true that every day we say 'Thank you; thank you' to each other."

"I just got home from one of the best live shows I have EVER seen. Thank you all for kicking major musical butt tonight and making me want to come back for more...your show was an awesome collection of prowess, wit, harmony, message and good ole live-performance musicianship that is inspirational to any type of artist--hopefully to anybody who hears you. I have never had so much fun with so many frat boys in the same room before in my life, and probably never will."

Phil
Kieran's (Minneapolis, MN)
Friday, May 22, 1998

"Dawning's Whisper still haunts me! *shiver* Wonderful! (I'm demented, I like the spooky/sad/insane songs!) Keep doing songs like that I might be too scared to listen or go to any more shows! Kidding...."

D`arc Angel
Reviewing Across the Water

"...the show was absolutely wonderful. The excitement, the drama, the action...oh wait....the music...that's right we were there for the music. I can't even begin to express the words that tell you what it feels like be part of the whole event with you all. Joy. It is a pure joy to be part of the energy of this group."

Kathleen Best
CD Release Show
McGonigel's Mucky Duck (Houston, TX)
Saturday, May 2, 1998

"This is some damned good Celtic Folk/Rock. The lead singer's voice is well matched to their playing style and the band has good interplay and pulls audience participation in. Rating: ***1/2"

John A. Shoemaker

The band is currently soliciting reviews of both live and recorded performances. To submit a review, please send text (and photos, if available) to Joe Magee.