How can I hear these peerless performers, you ask? Well: retail stores that carry the Bubble & Squeak CD, "A Celtic Feast from County Door," are County Sound in Sister Bay and Dancing Bear in Sturgeon Bay. Drop in and buy one ($15) and take it home. If you're just too far away to get to these retail outlets, send $17 to Bubble & Squeak, P.O. Box 517, Sturgeon Bay WI 54235, or $12 for a cassette tape, and a copy will be on its way within a day, postpaid.
And best of all, the group's second CD is now available! "A County Door Celtic Christmas" is a festive collection of Christmas airs and dances from all corners of the Celtic world. This CD is also just $17 by mail, postage paid.
The CD features Celtic tunes melded with traditional carols and old seasonal songs, tunes like "Frost and Snow," "Christmas Day Ida Moarnin'," "Apples in Winter," and "The Frost is All Over," and carols both familiar and not so familiar. Many tunes were given challenging arrangements by Dean Langby. The recording provides music which reflects both the joy and the solemnity of the season. Click here to see a list of the tunes on each cut.
Bubble & Squeak began in the early 90s when Cy Rosenthal and Janelle Peotter-Webber on tin whistles, and Adrian Webber on bodhran (the Irish drum) began meeting occasionally to play Irish music. Soon Steve Lavell on guitar joined them. The yet unnamed band played its first gig in Baileys Harbor for Frogtown Framing on the Fourth of July 1993. This success (they weren't pelted with rotten fruit) inspired learning more tunes and adding Glennie Wilding-White on hammered dulcimer and Jim Woods on guitar and mandolin. This grouping performed next at the first Passages Live! radio special in 1994. During the next two years the group added Dave O'Connell, guitar and vocals, Dean Langby, cello and fiddle, and Leah Langby, wooden flute.
Over the next few years the group played many public performances at The Red Barn, Miller Art Center, and various local public and private celebrations through the county, and by 1996 they were confident enough to tackle their first recording project, "A Celtic Feast from County Door," DCV-010, during the coldest weekend recorded that winter, three straight nights of -20 degree temperatures.
Since then the band has gone through some more changes. O'Connell moved to Sheboygan and Wilding-White retired from performance. Sue Piper on fiddle has become a regular member. With many competing responsibilities, including a total of more than eleven children of band members, a performance by Bubble & Squeak means a group of six to eight musicians performing on a wide range of instruments, including fiddle, cello, tin whistle, low whistle, mandolin, guitar, bodhran, bones, triangle, steel drum, and flute. Bubble & Squeak, with friends, has also been playing barn dances as The Sugar on the Floor Barn Dance Orchestra.
A final note about the meaning of the name "Bubble & Squeak": it's a combination of mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage, fried all together, and commonly served throughout the British Isles. It is an unpretentious, satisfying dish served to family and friends. Somehow the name seemed to fit the band.
For more info on current releases go to Bubble & Squeak's other website at www.iuma.com/IUMA-2.0/ftp/music/Bubble_&_Squeak/
If you're interested in engaging the band to play at your wedding, anniversary, office party, family reunion, civic celebration, or any other gathering, e-mail bubsqueak@yahoo.com or call 920-743-7240 or 920-746-8880.