Happily, Clannamore’s latest recording delivers exactly what the title, Beer, Bawd, and Ballads says. Alanna Berger on hammered dulcimer and vocals, and Blaine Liffick on guitar and vocals are the husband and wife duo of Clannamore who are part of the movement to keep the folk and archaic music, mostly of Irish and Scottish origin, alive in the year 2000. They do this by choosing songs that are close to their hearts, and they have been doing this since the ’60s. Also, they change and rearrange unappealing or outdated lyrics, a practice long-accepted in the folk tradition. Clannamore has targeted this album for the pub crowd who will find the assorted selection of lively songs a perfect accompaniment for an afternoon or evening of Guinness and peanuts, as well as your car’s cassette player on a Sunday drive through Pennsylvania countryside. For this party atmosphere, the two chose Bube’s Brewery in Mt. Joy to record their selections during a live performance.

Raise your glass along with the opening song, "Beer, Beer, Beer". You will probably find your children, finger-tapping, clapping, or whistling along, if they are within earshot. If they are, you may also hear giggles and questioning faces might inquire about chamber pots, chastity belts, tinkers, and men in skirts with blue ribbons hidden beneath! Do your best!

The kids will pick up on these things because, unlike so much of today’s music, the lyrics are actually clear and understandable and quite often tell a story. You must listen, especially because you will surely want to sing along with one of the choruses. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never had a voice lesson in your life. These songs are for everyone. Liffick and Berger do not have a classically-trained sound, thank goodness. They could be your mom and dad or your aunt and uncle, but their homey vocal quality work very well together. When each takes the lead in a song, the other does an appropriately sweet harmony. As song stylists, they express very well the various characters in the more bawdy tunes that adds a nice contrasting texture to the ballads.

If you are familiar with the lovely, mostly instrumental, music of Clannamore’s first album To the Faire, you will find Beer, Bawd and Ballads an interesting contrast. The group is able to handle well different styles of material in the same genre. This second effort is much more informal and intimate to the point of invading privacy, and very much less delicate. While there are purposefully three categories of song on this album, they somehow transcend each other and make a great six-pack! In the final analysis, Clannamore says it the best, themselves "these songs are just plain fun and entertaining."

Co-producer and Engineer, Scott "Scooter" Ramsey of Synergy Studios at Rockville in association with Rockville Productions, Harrisburg, has done a fine job. Except for a few rude bar noises during performance, the quality is so good that you might think the recording was done in the studio. The only disappointment here was the small crowd that could not give the group their due. Liffick attributes this to the fact that the performance was held during the week before Christmas. Everyone was probably at the mall. Too bad!

Interested fans and would-be enthusiasts are joyfully invited to join Clannamore June 23 at Bube’s Brewery, Market St. in Mt. Joy, PA, 653-2056. They will be singing songs from this album as well as from their first recording, To the Faire. Be prepared for a good, ol’ slightly bawdy time!

Shipwreck

Get ready to be moved body, mind and soul by the hypnotic vibe and poetic rap of Shipwreck. Shipwreck, also known as Steven Murray (originally from Harrisburg), is one of this region’s only rap performers to have made a name for himself in the Harrisburg and Philadelphia areas.

The name Shipwreck was given to Murray as a child by a heroin addicted writer who rented a room from his family. By the time Murray was 10 years old he was writing lyrics and knew that writing was his destiny. "If I could get my poetry heard I would — I just put it into rap so everyone gets to experience it," says 23-year-old Murray. His lyrics are beautiful expressions of life, uncomplicated and real. His music is constantly changing — spacey sound effects, electronic drums and soul driven messages blend into the background of weirdness that is created by Shipwreck.

Murray moved to Philadelphia three years ago but has recently returned and performed one of his first shows in Harrisburg at ArtsFest 2000. He will perform again on Friday, June 9 at 7:00 p.m. at the Whitaker Center. Shipwreck has a following of fans in Harrisburg and an even larger one in the Philadelphia area. He has played with such acts as The Roots, Organized Konfusion, Souls of Mischief, and The Boot Camp Click. He is also part of groups called The Lost Children of Babylon (hip-hop) and Life Against Death, which are considered more hardcore rap.

The musical influences of Shipwreck include everything from Bjork, Portishead, and The Disposable Heroes of Hypocrisy, to Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder.

"My goal is to change the definition of cool. Usually apathy makes one cool, now I feel it’s all about modesty. It has always been my music that has kept me alive. My life reeks of dysfunction but I choose to use that in a positive way. It’s so easy to be a pessimist and write lyrics that are full of despair and ugliness. It’s much harder to write lyrics that are good for the soul and that people can relate with."

With such big name rap artists Eminem and DMX rapping about guns, drugs, and women’s body parts it’s no wonder that rap gets a bad a name, but if you check out a performance by Shipwreck you’ll get a whole new respect for the art that is rap. It’s all about the lyrical content; Shipwreck makes you feel alive and energized in a positive way.

Shipwreck hopes to have the first CD released sometime this summer. And consider yourself warned — Murray is planning on taking a trip across the country for the next few months, so now is your chance to see him live in the Harrisburg area. In the past, Shipwreck has performed at The Wire in New Cumberland, a gig that landed him his opportunity to play at Whitaker Center.