All good here in the studio in Nashville.

We spent day one setting up (dear diary..)

Day two and we've one track (a Danish set called Five Jumps) nearly finished before lunch. Time for a bite to eat and a song next!

One more day in the studio, then a few gigs way out in Montana before heading back to Nashville to round everything off..

We've touched down in Chicago for the start of a short US tour and several sessions at Compass Records' studio in Nashville, where we hope to complete our fifth album (more on that later).

The tour dates are listed on our MySpace profile, as well as website (www.gradamusic.com) and facebook sites (www.facebook.com/grada).

Hopefully we'll see you all at the gigs and maybe even around Nashville if any of you happen to live there, where we'll be based for several weeks.

Talk soon!

Hey everyone we've been nominated for "Best Young Irish Traditional Act" in this years Ireland's Music Awards. The link below allows people to vote, which would be much appreciated :)

http://www.irelandsmusicawards.com/nomin..ees.php

In other news, the NZ / Australian Tour rounded out nicely and was followed by a short weekend of festivals in Germany (also a great time)... oh, and how could we forget Tokyo, which was a blast as usual.

We're currently preparing for our new CD, rehearsing in Galway and Foxford over the next few weeks, more info, and, er photos, coming soon!

Andy / Grada

Our tour 'Down Under' is in full swing, with good crowds and lots of nice scenery to take in.

We're heading over to the South Island today, by plane after the ferry was cancelled due to stormy seas (along with our gig on the boat as well).

We've made it to New Zealand, and are surprisingly non-jetlagged after our 11 hour time change and 35 hour journey!

The tour starts on the 15th of May in Auckland at the imaginatively named Dog's Bollix venue. In the meantime, those in New Zealand can catch us on The Good Morning Show later this week, and also live on Radio Active's Americana show this Sunday 10th of May from 3-4pm NZ Time, which is 11 hours ahead of GMT (listenable online here: http://radioactive.co.nz/).

.. and on Radio NZ on Friday the 15th around 2pm NZ time.

Our new flute player, Stephen Doherty (no relation) is sounding great in rehearsals. We'll have to put up a live track sometime so y'all can here the new sound (which sounds alarmingly like the old sound so far).

Talk soon,
Andy / Grada

Well, after 8 great years with the band, Alan has decided to move on (or stop moving on, depending on which way you look at it). The US tour last March was his last...

More info and photos, etc coming soon, along with an announcement about the mystery replacement!

Andy

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, we made it out of the Californian mountains, and spent about 75 hours getting to Burlington Vermont for St. Patrick's Day through all types of terrain and climates, but we're here now.

Just for the record:
1. Chico, CA to Bishop CA (9 hrs + blizzard at 7000 feet)
2. Bishop CA to San Diego CA (9 hrs with traffic, but included a worthwhile scenic downhill run out of Sierra Nevada Mountains and nice night out in Santa Monica on the way)
3. San Diego to San Juan (peanuts)
4. San Juan to Colombia, MD (12 hours, including flights and Alamo wasting 3 hours trying to tell us that we can't have the van we ordered because it doesn't exist - until we eventually walk into the yard ourselves and find 10 of them, by which stage the [guilty] manager has walked off the job and we have to go with Thrifty).
5. Colombia MD to Bedford VA and back again (about 10 hours).
6. Washington DC to Manchester NH (10 hours, including traffic)
7. Machester NH to Homer NY (9 hours including traffic)
8. ... and back again, en route to Tamworth NH the very next day (10 hours)
9. Tamworth NH to Burlington VT (only around 4.5 hours - piece of cake!)

Andy

Help, we're stuck in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nobody told us about tire chains! Luckily we found a lodge that was open, but there's no food for 15 miles and we can't drive any further...

We have the following supplies:

3 bottles of Sierra Nevada Beer (Pale Ale)
2 oranges
2 bananas (one very over ripe).
Half a packet of crisps (strange chili lime flavour, hopefully we won't need them).
2 beer sticks (salami sort of things from 7/11)
7 tic tacs
Some biscuit crumbs

There's no heating, but we only have to survive until the morning, when the one and only shop will open.

Our last stop was Chico, Caifornia, home of Sierra Nevada beer (possibly the best U.S. beer around) and a bunch of really nice people.

And our next stop (if we make it through the blizzard) is Bishop, California. The gateway to Yosemite National park. It's actually amazing around here, everyone should check it out.

Andy

There are only a few days to go until our US tour begins next week, starting in California. We'll also be on the East Coast (Vermont, NY, DC, etc) and then down in New Mexico. We've put all the dates up on our MySpace account now.
We've also added several new songs to our profile for you to listen to.
Hope to see ya'll on the road somewhere!
Andy / Grada