VOTE FOR ATHAS!

http://www.slbc.ie/involved/compreg/

Support athas this Thanksgiving week by voting for us in stage one of Strangford Lough Brewing Co.’s Battle of the Bands competition! The top five bands will have a shot at performing at Diablo’s Cantina at the Monte Carlo Casino in Las Vegas!

And by just by placing a vote for athas, you are entering a competition to win two flights to Las Vegas from anywhere in North America  to watch the winning band perform in March 2010! 

Amy’s cousin, Jon Richter of Supermassive Studios, shot some amazing footage of the classic trio last weekend to make a music video of everyone’s favorite set from our debut album: Drowsy Maggie/Mountain Road/Tam Lin! You can check out the video on the Battle of the Bands site and vote for athas by following this link:

VOTE: http://www.slbc.ie/involved/compreg/

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKjW8eFc4E

(Note:  The company’s header really squished our video. You can view the full video on our Facebook and YouTube pages!)

athas YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN8FWvUV7u8

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=734505443308&ref=mf

You can only vote once—but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell all your friends about the contest too! So please forward this email, post the voting link on your Facebook profile, tweet about athas… anything you can think of to help us spread the word!

If your wonderful support gets us into round two, we’ll be submitting a second video! We will keep you all posted and may very well need your support again soon!

To show our thanks for all you wonderful friends and fans, we’re offering a special sale of our debut album through CD Baby and at our gigs during the holiday season! You can pick up the disc for only $10! And we’ll be giving away other merchandise throughout the month as well, so keep your eye on our Facebook page and twitter account.

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and the four of us are all very thankful for your support!

Jeff, Kathleen, Amy, and Heather

athas

http://www.athasmusic.com

.. ..

We hope that the fall has been treating you all well! To prepare for Thanksgiving and to show how grateful we are for all of your support, we've decided to give you some new, free goodies to get everyone in the right spirits!

First off, we've upload two live tracks from our August radio show on WMSE to our Reverbnation page. On the Tuesday of Irish Fest week, we went into the studio and recorded for the Local Live show and were joined by our good friend Paul Marshall of Different Drums of Ireland. Here are two cuts from our set, the slides "Where's the Cat/ Eileen O' Riordan's/ Kings of Kerry" and a Breton andro into two reels, "The Wren/ Anything for John Joe/ Devil's Dream" (featuring Paul Marshall on djembe!). Click on the link below to listen to them or visit our Reverbnation page!

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/887704

As we mentioned last month, we had a photo shoot with Deone Jahnke on October 1st. We have three of our new promo pics online on our Myspace and Reverbnation pages.

athas has been selected to compete in ZBands.com's "Battle of the ZBands" virtual competition. The voting begins on November 15, 2008 and runs for seven days. Visit Zbands.com and cast your vote for athas starting on Saturday!

In gig news, athas returns to the County Clare on November 21st! Music starts at 10pm. You can find us at our usual Sunday gig at the Brocach on November 16th and 30th from 6pm to 8pm, and be sure to catch Amy and Jeff with Kathleen Bremer on flute at the Brocach on November 23rd.

Thanks again for all of your support and friendship! Work continues on the new CD and much more music is yet to come from athas in the coming months. Stay tuned!

-athas

athas CD review - Irish Music Magazine - November 2008

ÁTHAS

Áthas CD 001
15 Tracks
Running Time 48.22

www.athasmusic.com

Áthas has become the band of choice for dancers in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas in a very short time. Their first album is self-titled: Irish for joy and happiness. It is an interesting and tuneful work, made up of old tunes and new compositions.
Áthas is made up of fiddler Heather Lewin-Tiarks, Jeff Ksiazek on guitar, whistles, and flute and Amy Richter on bodhrán, djiembe and whistles. Guest, Kathleen Bremer, joins them on flute. The fifteen pieces on the album cover a wide range of styles. It opens with a pair of tunes written by the trio, The Cheesehead Polka/ The $150 Boot polkas delivered in perfect dance rhythm. The old reliable, Boys of Tandagree is teamed up with a couple of other jigs, Tuesday Morning/Checkered Blanket, written by Heather.
Iníon ní Mhicheál is a sweet and sweeping waltz written by Jeff Ksiazek with the three blending in perfectly. His guitar leads into the tune, and is followed by Lewin-Tiarks fiddle, and then Richter's drumming. Richter's drumming is also prominently featured on the reels Drowsy Maggie/Mountain Road/Tam Lin. Lewin-Tiarks comes to the fore on Spootiskerry/Teatime with Seamus with nicely balanced delivery. Ksiazek and Richter collaborate on whistles on An Choisir/Micho Russell's/Rejected Suitor with Lewin-Tiarks providing the backing rhythm on fiddle.
The only complaint I have is the freshman sensibility of trying to be too clever, which the band does by adding fake break endings on a couple of the tunes. Other than that, this is really a very well played and produced work. Áthas it is, joyful to hear. - Brian Witt

http://www. irishmusicmagazine. com/issues/1108nov/

http://www. irishmusicmagazine. com/releases/1108nov/

Hey everyone,

Like every August, this month will be a busy one for áthas with festivals and gigs galore! Because of said craziness, there will be no 2^nd Friday set dance this August—but, the folks at Trinity Three Irish Pubs will be chatting with us after Irish Fest about getting dancing going their this fall. We will keep you all posted!

La Crosse Irish Fest !!

First off, we trek up to La Crosse this weekend (August 9 and 10) to play at the La Crosse Irish Fest. We'll be playing a set on the main stage at 11am on Saturday, and we'll be playing for the Glencastle Irish Dancers on Sunday at 12:30pm on Sunday. If you're in the area or are planning on hitting up the La Crosse Fest, come say hello and hang out with us—we'll be around all weekend!

www.irishfestlax.org

Milwaukee Irish Fest !!

áthas takes Milwaukee Irish Fest by storm again this year. We'll be playing all three days:

Friday 8/15: Be sure to check out our stage show at the renamed Milwaukee Pub Garden Stage on Friday at 4pm—admission to the festival is free from 4 to 5pm on Friday!! Later that night, we'll be playing for the Milwaukee Set Dance Club's late night ceili at the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center. The dance kicks off at midnight and goes until 3am. Admission to this special event is $10.

Saturday 8/16: The band hits the Dance Pavilion tent to play the ceili at 5pm. Come dance up a storm!

Sunday 8/17: áthas again rocks the Dance Pavilion for the set dance at 1:15pm. Bring your dancing shoes and some water (keep hydrated folks!) Unfortunately we just found out we'll have to cut that dance 15 minutes short (it will end at 2:15pm), but that's because our wonderful bodhrán player, Amy Richter, has been awarded this year's Ed Ward Irish Music Scholarship! We'll be sprinting over to the Miller Lite Stage for Amy's award ceremony at 2:30pm—congratulations, Amy!

www.irishfest.com

Radio Shows !!

áthas will be featured on two radio spots in the coming week, both scheduled to air on Tuesday! We just completed an interview and played some tunes for WUWM's (89.7 FM) 'Lake Effect' program which will air Tuesday morning at 10:00am and will replay at 11:00pm.  www.wuwm.com

Later that night, we're recording for WMSE's (91.7 FM) 'Local/Live' show which will air from 8pm to 9pm. We'll be playing tunes from the Paul Philips Scholarship Fund CD which we recorded back in January, and our good friend Paul Marshall from Different Drums of Ireland will be sitting in to play and discuss the scholarship.  www.wmse.org

CD Sale !!

We know that prices at the pump have been hitting folks pretty hard, so through September, the band has decided to drop the price of our CDs on CD Baby to $12.75! So even if you can't make it to Irish Fest, you can order our CD and, even with postage, get it for the same price that we sell it at our shows--$15.00. We've also lowered the cost of the MP3 price of our album to $10.99! http://cdbaby.com/cd/athas

For the rest of August, the band will be at our usual gigs—as always, go check out our website, www.athasmusic.com, for our full schedule!

Coming up in September :

áthas teaches at the Wisconsin Highland Games on Sunday, September 7

Frodo Fest on Saturday, September 20^th in Salem, WI.

More details to come!

Thanks for all your love and support!!

Jeff, Amy, and Heather

-athas
http://www.reverbnation.com/athas

www.athasmusic.com

We just found out that athas was featured on the OnMilwaukee/WMSE Local Music Podcast last week (June 23rd, 2008).

Brent (from WMSE) played the tune set 'Christmas Day/Dan O'Keefe's' off of our CD and he promoted our upcoming local shows. He also attended the gig at the County Clare on Saturday night (which is how we found out that we were on the podcast).

Thanks Brent!! You're awesome!!

OnMilwaukee/WMSE Local Music PODCAST June 23, 2008

June 15, 2008

Athas

"Well, the first review… is going to be a short one as I forgot something to write on when I went to the show last night. First, the show was at Trinity Three Irish Pubs, which is on Juneau one half block west of Water Street in downtown Milwaukee. The venue itself is very well appointed, the three different pubs however and the general layout make it a bit confusing. It took me some walking around to find the stage. It was pretty empty when I got there, which was about quarter to nine, which is not unusual for a downtown establishment. For some reason people seem to enjoy missing 3/4 of a show. Anyhow. The bartender I had seemed very friendly, though I only ordered one drink from him as there were waitresses tending the patrons at the tables in front of the stage.

The show started, and one thing quickly became apparently. These guys are techincally amazing. If there was one wrong note played all night, I didn't hear it. Very subtle cues indicating tune change. It was refreshing hearing a band playing 99.9% ITM rather than concentrating on what they can inject to make it more modern. It's called Traditional for a reason. I digress. Jeff, Amy and Heather are all amazing on their instruments. Jeff and Amy are the multi-instrumentalists, Jeff on Guitar, Tin Whistle and Flute; Amy on Bodhran, Djembe and Tin Whistle. The guitar was a nice bass line, nothing too show-ey. Jeff and Amy both played Whistle on a couple songs, which made a nice louder sound, however it would have been nice to hear some complementary melodies in these cases. Amy had one short solo and then a longer one, both of which were amazing. Good mix of John Joe Kelly and Eamon Murray's playing. Heather is a consumate fiddle player, playing every note in the tune and not leaving out a few here and there because of difficulty, which I've heard frequently from Milwaukee fiddle players. All three seem to genuinely enjoy what they're doing, and the name Athas, which means joy and happiness, is definitely appropriate. I highly recommend catching them at their next show, schedule available @ www.myspace.com/athas. Slainte!"

Posted by David at Celtic Milwaukee

www.myspace.com/celticmilwaukee

Hi everyone!

We hope that you all are enjoying the (somewhat) nicer weather in the greater Milwaukee area. And if you're not in Milwaukee, we hope it's warming up for you, too!

Unfortunately, this update brings both the regular, athas-soaked good news and some not-so-good news. On the not-so-good/bad front, it appears that our home for the second Friday set dances, the Ardor Pub, has gone the way of the dodo, the T-Rex, and Pee Wee's Playhouse. It appears that the pub has closed, although no signs or messages are forthcoming from the management. Jeff is currently contacting a couple possible leads and will keep you all posted as to future locations. As of right now, consider June's Ardor set dance as "canceled" unless otherwise noted!

On the (usual) good news front, athas is ready to heat things up this summer! And to kick things off, we're offering a fan-exclusive download of a set recorded at Paddy's Pub this past winter. On January 18, 2008, we played our first show at Paddy's Pub, and athas was lucky enough to have our fan Steve Dolan in the audience recording the whole show! Steve did a great job, so we've decided to offer a recording of "The Maid Behind the Bar/ Earl's Chair/ Gravel Walks" set as a stream and download through ReverbNation. Just follow the link below--you may need to sign up for a free ReverbNation account, but hey, it's for a free tune! :-D

Speaking of ReverbNation, we hope you like our new newsletter courtesy of the site. And, if you're interested in helping athas out by promoting our music, shows, and general goodness, feel free to sign up as a member of our street team. You'll get missions to help us get our music out to more people--and will be rewarded with official athas swag!

In other news:

Heather's on her way out to New York for a cello gathering called the New Directions Cello Festival.

Amy and Jeff will be playing with fellow Irish Fest School of Music teacher Randy Gosa at the Pewaukee Public Library's Travel Ireland event on Tuesday, June 10th. The event starts with a photo tour of Ireland at 6:30pm. You can find full details at the Library's Facebook event page.

athas keeps on trucking in June with gigs at Trinity Three Irish Pubs on June 14th, Co. Clare on June 28th, and the Brocach Pub on June 22nd and 29th. See our myspace show schedule for further details and gigs!

Well, that's all for now. Be on the look out for more info regarding the second Friday set dance, and we hope to see you all out to some shows this month!

Slan anois!

-athas
http://www.reverbnation.com/athas
http://www.athasmusic.com

Hey there athas fans!

We just joined ReverbNation.com.
www.reverbnation.com/athas

Sign up on our mailing list, become a fan, and join our street team.
**Street team members will get free athas merch when you help promote us. Just send us an email telling us what you did to promote athas and where. Thanks!

Hey there athas fans,

The old athas website is still online:

http://athasmusic.tripod.com//id8.html

If you click around a bit...

you’ll find sound clips, old photos (lots of silly ones), and links to stuff we like.

Have fun!

You know what’s coming up :) 

Come celebrate with us!!!

For anyone in the Milwaukee area, tune into 96.5fm WKLH tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Feb. 27th, 2008) at 8:30am. Dave and Carole will be interviewing John McGivern, and Athas will play a tune or two.

http://www.wklh.com/daveAndCarole.asp