Phantom Button
My advice to anyone using this website is to avoid the discussion forum as it is a complete waste of time. The moderation is woeful and encourages bullying and negativity. Most of the well-known international musicians you would hope to find in the membership here have either avoided stepping into the snake pit or left in disgust after witnessing or falling victim to the antics that the webmaster appears to encourage and even enable. The webmaster says, "be civil," but after a while you realize he means certain people can launch personal attacks with impunity, but if anyone dares to speak out against it they will find themselves being punished by the webmaster without recourse instead of the people who were being abusive in the first place. The moderation in the discussion forum contradicts itself and defies many of the internet discussion forum protocols you would hope and expect to find on an Irish trad music website.
The tune data base is really the only useful feature here for help in tracking down tunes and exploring settings and provenance. The session database might give you a start on finding sessions too, but there will be many great sessions that would avoid being listed here for reasons I stated above. Word of mouth is still your best bet.
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I live in San Francisco and my "local" is the Plough & Stars Pub. I've been hosting and attending sessions there since 1988. I'm completely obsessed with ITM but I haven't a clue why... except that it's great music.
If you want to know any more... I have a website at: http://www.TipsyHouse.com
Here's some mp3 files of me playing:
Concertina: Eel In The Sink / Limerick Lasses http://www.tipsyhouse.com/Eels.mp3
Fiddle: Dale Russ
Guitar: Junji Shirota
recorded in 1998
Flute: The Road to Garrison / John Kelly's / John Brady's http://www.tipsyhouse.com/tunes/godfather.mp3
Fiddle: Kevin Bernhagen
Guitar: Richard Mandel
recorded in 2004
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The band was featured on an NPR program called, The California Report, in a spot titled, "An Irish Music Postcard" that features the three of us playing for set dancers and talking about the music at the local pub, and you can hear me playing whistle at one of the sessions as well. Here's the link.
http://www.theploughandstars.com/media/MP3s/_misc/2008-05-02_California_Report.mp3
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Here are some original tunes I submitted:
The Hobby Horse: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/8199
Spurlock's Half-Century Reel: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6282
The Green Bridge: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/3173
The Seven Sisters: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/2787
The Golden Monocle: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/2945
Caught in the Middle: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/3574
The Misconception: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/3448
Why Were You Playing That?: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6018
Tunes in Phantom Button's tunebook: 70